My Dearly Beloved San Francisco: A Love Letter

My Dearly Beloved San Francisco, 

As a little girl when I finally began to understand the true meaning of your beauty, you took my breath away.  The diversity and colors. The joy and the happiness but yet a beautiful struggle. As the years went by I finally began to wonder at what you truly have to offer.

So I began my adventure, high and low. I saw all but great wonders. You are truly beautiful but yet inside you are a disaster. The anger that you hold within yourself it scares me. What secrets do you hold that darken you? I want to know. I want to help you, why have you become so cold?


My love don't let me go.

I want to help you, for I am the change for the future. Trust me my dear, don't lose faith.  You are my strength. You and me will become the great change for unity. I want to help you in any way possible. I don't want to see you struggle.  The people, the youth, you cause them pain. Why is it so expensive to stay?

I told myself no more. My family had to move. Then that's when I knew it was time to help you and there i was, the one sign that gave me a clue, going to YEFAB was on great way to help you.

Love,
Stacy

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Stacy Martinez is a member of the Youth Empowerment Fund Advisory Board (YEFAB). She wrote this as part of a love letter exercise. Each YEFAB member was prompted to write a letter to the city of San Francisco sharing what they love, what they want to change and why they have been called to action. Stacy is a Junior and Student Body Vice President at John O'Connel High School. Read more about Stacy and other YEFAB members here.

Coordinators Corner: Their City, Their Teacher

WE'RE BACK!

After a brief hiatus we're back with more YEF news, tips and resources for all of our readers and community partners. We're starting a new series called "Coordinators Corner" to highlight some best practices our staff has learned and would like to share with youth workers in San Francisco and beyond.

We want to bring you blogs that will help you support your youth plus encourage communication and collaboration among the amazing organizations in SF serving young people. So, leave a comment with a question or a new topic you'd like to see us cover and we'll do our best to share content that will be helpful.

San Francisco Mapping Activity

Living and working in a major city like San Francisco we can get so consumed with the hustle and bustle of routine that we often forget that our lives only cover so much of the 46.9 square miles SF has to offer. Humans are creatures of habit and none more than young people.

Youth in San Francisco--as in any other place-- have their own routines.  They have their favorite hang out spots (T-Pumps high on the list) and their frequented routes from school to home to after school sites and then back home again. While they might see more diversity of culture and class in their daily route than a teen in a small town or suburb, their own experience only tells a part of the story of the city.

YEF Advisory Board (YEFAB) map their lives in SF

Often in youth empowerment programming, we want to highlight and uphold the knowledge-rich experiences of young people. However, it is also important to show them a wider world of diverse experiences outside of their realm of consciousness. The balancing act between providing programming that does both can be exhausting.

Doing a mapping activity that pinpoints where youth spend most of their time, allows them to both share their experience with the group and highlights the places and experiences that they might not see in their daily lives.

Suggested Mapping Activity Steps:

• Print out or create a digital map of San Francisco (or your own city).
• Ask youth use pieces of paper or digital pinpoint to indicate where they live, go to school, work, hang out with friends and shop (create more categories that might reflect the activity goal)
• Have youth share with the group their points.
• As a group look for patterns (where are there a lot of pins, where are there not as many, why?).
• Have youth do research or explore an area they are unfarmiliar with and present back to the group at a later meeting.

*For more info on how to make your own map and other urban civic engagement resources check out the "Make Your PLACE" curriculum made available through Catlin Gabel.

Let's Educate Ourself on Civic Engagement with Youth Advocay Day

If your interested in meeting with city officials, meet other youth, express your ideas and concerns to real people who can help and let your voice be heard?
Come to Youth Advocacy Day. Thursday, March 15,2012 ALL DAY!
"Youth Advocacy Day is a historic day of civic engagement where high school students from all over San Francisco meet with elected and city officials to discuss issues they care about as young people. The Youth Warriors lead the high school participants, many who have never been to City Hall, throughout the day by organizing workshops on city government and helping them prepare for their meetings with the officials."

Youth Advocacy Day 2011

Our very own San Francisco Giants winning the 2010 World Series caused the city to buzz with excitement and orange and black pride.

On Wednesday, April 6th, the city was also buzzing with orange and black pride......representing youth voice and youth power. On this day, the Youth Empowerment Fund hosted the second annual Youth Advocacy Day - a historic day of youth civic engagement. High school students had the opportunity to learn about city government in workshops led by the 2011 Youth Warriors and also meet with their elected and city officials to discuss youth issues they care about.

The Youth Warriors, who rocked out in their orange and black Youth Advocacy Day T-shirts, led engaging small group workshops and helped the students prepare talking points and questions for their meetings with the local officials. Several members of the Board of Supervisors, the Mayor, and various city departments participated, including the SFMTA, Police, Juvenile Probation, Public Library, Environment, Public Health, Department of Children, Youth, and their Families, and Recreation and Parks.

One of the highlights of the day was Mayor Edwin Lee addressing all the youth in his conference room at City Hall and sharing inspiring words on pursuing higher education and being involved in city politics.

The closing ceremony and press conference on the City Hall Polk St. Steps was a beautiful ending to a beautiful day. The steps were adorned by orange and black balloons, our youth-painted Youth Advocacy Day sign, and all the students standing and facing the crowd of press. At the podium, we heard words of inspiration from Supervisors Campos and Farrell, a representative from Senator Mark Leno's office, and also Youth Warrior Robin Bonner.

We're excited to host Youth Advocacy Day in 2012 and continue to represent orange and black pride - symbolizing San Francisco's youth and the power to make their voices heard in city government!