Youth United for Global Action and Awareness

It is important to connect the global youth, and through our group, we strive to do just that. We find it impossible to hinder our anger and frustration, passions and energy and thus, we created a group that allows us to carry forward this vigor. We cannot sit still when we know that children like us, across the world and across the city, go hungry every night or do not have access to education. As a group, we gather afterschool, to discuss the lack of awareness of such issues within our school and community and strive to change the facts. Through methods of education and awareness including past Dance-a-thons, peaceful demonstrations and guerilla poster plastering, we continue to make it obvious to the Cranston High School East Community that we are not the only ones. We are loud and persistent; we fight to educate our peers through activism. What's your plan of action? – Describe the steps you will take/took to create your project or organization. What kind of impact have you made? Since, our group has already been established, we continue to recruit new members and hold true to our founding goals. We began as a group of concerned students connected with the larger Youth United for Global Action and Awareness based in New England. We branched from the larger group, to form an individual chapter within our Cranston, RI high school. We announce to the school who we are and hold after school meetings once a week. Together, we organize small campaigns within the school to spread awareness about the issues we are most concerned about: AIDS/HIV, Climate Change, Child Rights, and Poverty. Dividing the issues into designated months, we have in the past, sold red ribbons in December to raise money for AIDS care, collected canned items for a local food bank in November, gathered recyclable materials from the trash in April and held a day of silence to mark Child Exploitation in February. We reach as many of the 900 students in the school as possible, watch as our peers participate in the activities, as others brought in canned goods and some carried their bottles home to recycle. We have sold over 300 red ribbons for AIDS aid, and hung over 100 posters in the stairwells and bathroom stalls. To extend our outreach, our current vision is to host a Benefit Arts Night with the goal to raise awareness within our local school community and empower peers to create action.