On May 5th, 2007...YARG Made History

Hey everyone,
My name is Moises Miranda and I am one of YARG’s core members, or as we like to call our self’s Yarganights. First of all, I would like to let you know that this is my fist post, so feedback and constructive criticism are welcomed. Y.A.R.G. (Youth Action Research Group) has been trying to improve the Summer Youth Employment program of D.C. which is supposed to provide paid job training opportunites to DC Youth age 14-18. We (YARG) have had meetings with several DC City Council Members, including Carol Schwartz, who is part of the Workforce Development Committee. We have been to her office, we flooded her questions and we asked her for a hearing specifically on the Summer Youth Employment Program. We have also been meeting with other Council members so they can get on the issue and continue to apply pressure so things get done. After several meetings, YARG was able to get a special hearing on the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), on Saturday, so young people could attend. We invited youth and several other non-profit organizations and partners to come to the hearing to testify. The following are the testimonies of our members (including me), along with a video of each, so you can’t say that ya didn’t read any cause it was too much to read. Enjoy.

martha



jose



emmanuael



anita



krissy



moises (me:)



carol shwartz applauds YARG

Celebrate Youth Activism with YARG!

Join the Youth Action Research Group (YARG) for the release of our new action research report & recommendations for quality youth employment training and job opportunities in Washington, DC.

Monday February 12, 2007
7 pm
Busboys & Poets Cafe
2021 14th St. NW

RSVP yarg@yargdc.org

To learn more & to sign on-to YARG's Priority Recommendations for Quality Youth Employment email yarg@yargdc.org or call (202) 462-5767. Hope to see you Feb 12th!

YARG Member Nancy Cruz Speaks Out for Quality Youth Employment in DC

Nancy Cruz, right, testifies before the Workers' Rights Board
as part of a panel on Youth Employment in DC.

DC Jobs with Justice
Workers' Rights Board hearing: Tuesday, Jan. 23rd, 6:30-8:30pm
John Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave, NW

Testimony from: Nancy Cruz, 5075 Just St. NE Washington, DC 20019

Hello my name is Nancy Cruz. I am seventeen years old and I am a senior at Bell Multicultural High School. My dad is a chef and my mom is a janitor at Georgetown University. We live in NE DC. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my testimony today with the Workers’ Rights Board.

I am a member of the Youth Action Research Group, a youth membership based organizing project in DC. We organize around youth issues that we choose and now we are working to improve youth employment.

We did an action research report on DC’s Summer Youth Employment program because it gives youth the opportunity to gain hands-on experience, build their résumés, and earn money. We recognize it’s a great program to have for our city and while many jobsites offer great experiences for youth, the program as a whole could use some improvement.

To improve this program most importantly, the Department of Employment Services needs to improve how the program actually runs. Right now, many youth do not get paid on time, their jobsites are not planned very well, they don’t have anything to do, and they aren’t learning things to put on their resume.

• This summer we want for D.O.E.S. to fix their payment system so youth get paid on time and for the right amount.

• We also want D.O.E.S. to have a point person for when youth and employers have problems. Right now, when people have problems or questions, their phone doesn’t get answered. We need to know that someone is on the other end of the phone to help address the issues when they come up.

• We also think that youth should be paid the DC minimum wage which is right now seven dollars. $5.15 per hour is NOT enough for youth to earn. We have to pay to have new school supplies, buy new clothes, and for me, I have to give some my money that I receive from my job to my mom.

Congress right now is thinking about raising the federal minimum wage. We want D.O.E.S. to put enough money into the budget for 2008 to pay youth the new DC minimum wage AND to plan ahead for this summer in 2007 to pay the new federal minimum wage and not cut the 11,000 promised jobs for this summer.

Lastly, we want for the 2008 budget to include more money so that we can have YEAR-ROUND jobs for youth who are in school and for youth who are out of school. 1000 jobs for out of school youth would really be a good start and 500 jobs for youth who are in school.

We are passing around a sheet that has our recommendations. We hope everyone here today will support us as we organize to win these improvements to youth employment.

Please also sign up to come to our event in February where we will celebrate the publishing of our youth written research report on this issue.

DC Youth Rally to Stop the War on Youth

(YARGies Jacinta, Tiffany, Corey. .)


Click to read news coverage of the rally from the Washington Informer


(& Marina)

Colbert Interviews Eleanor Holmes Norton

Click to watch on UTube:
Taxation without Representation

Internet Disussion of the Crime Bill on DCist

Our post below was also submitted to dcist.com. <----- Click on the link to join the debate,

love- YARG

DC Youth Speak Out Against the Mayor’s Emergency Crime Bill

By: Jose Andrade, age 19, Nancy Cruz, age 16, Adriana Reynoso, age 18, Victor Benitez, age 16, Jacinta Wood, age 18, and Tiffany Jones, age 17

This emergency crime bill that the mayor passed was a shock. Why was a crime emergency called after someone was murdered in Georgetown? Not that it was good that someone was killed, but people in other D.C. neighborhoods deal with friends and family being killed every day and it’s not considered a crime emergency.

To us, it seems like only youth were blamed for what D.C. police are calling a sharp increase in crime when it is mostly adults who commit violent crime in D.C. Only one youth has been charged with homicide in D.C. this year. We feel, it’s easy to blame youth and put all these rules on us because we can’t vote. Besides, the things they put into place aren’t going to work. They haven’t yet; it’s almost been 30 days and people are still being killed in D.C.

What has happened is more stereotyping of youth. The curfew of 10 pm wrongly punishes all youth. Young people who are out on the streets late at night and doing wrong are going to be out even if there is a curfew. The youth the curfew affects the most are the majority of us that are not out doing wrong.

Here’s an example. One of us was stopped by the police a week before the curfew went into effect. It wasn’t even 10 yet, she knows because she was coming back from a community meeting we had all been to as part of work at YARG. The cop car pulled over and the cop shined his lights in her eyes. He asked her what she was doing out so late. After she told him, he asked if she knew that there was going to be a new curfew of 10 pm. She said no. He said that it would start the next week and then he let her go.

She was stopped for no reason when she was minding her business and trying to go home. This causes youth not to trust police because they just assume that if you are a youth that you are doing wrong. A 10 pm curfew means that we can’t go to an 8 o’clock movie without adult supervision. We are on lock down in our own city.

The cameras that the crime bill calls for also make no sense. Why is the city going to spend millions of dollars on a strategy that is not supported by research and has not been proven to work in other cities? A lot of people in D.C. neighborhoods have been saying that cameras are going to work and that they want them in their neighborhoods. They probably wouldn’t think that if D.C. Council members told them how well they have worked in other cities.

The other thing that the crime bill does is make it so that cops can look into youth’s records and hold them without bond. Cops can also tell principals about a youth’s suspected involvement in a crime and they can be expelled from school. That is the last thing that is going to help youth stay out of trouble. Isn’t our justice system supposed to be innocent until proven guilty? This crime bill makes it so that all youth in D.C. are considered guilty until they or their lawyers prove them innocent.

If D.C. wants to help keep us safe and out of trouble, what we really need is the city to invest more in us instead of in locking us up. D.C. spends $150,000 dollars per youth they lock up at Oak Hill, D.C.’s juvenile detention center; and only $12,000 per youth trying to get an education in DC public schools. The crime bill spends $2 million on cameras and $8 million to pay cops for overtime.

All this money is going for ‘crime prevention’ strategies that don’t work even in the short term, when it could be better spent on long term strategies that we know help youth, like making sure we get a good education at schools that aren’t falling apart and have no air conditioning in 80 degree weather and job training programs that prepare us to have good paying jobs in D.C. when we are older.

This Wednesday, August 23, 2006 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Freedom Plaza, D.C. youth will have a rally to speak out against the Mayor’s Emergency Crime Bill and talk about what youth think are real solutions to youth violence. Come out to our rally and learn more about what youth think are solutions to crime in D.C. and what we are doing address youth violence. We are not criminals.

Freedom Involves a Revolutionary Education

The Justice 4 DC Youth Coalition

Proudly Presents ........... F.I.R.E !

F.I.R.E. (Freedom Involves a Revolutionary Education)

Is a six-week political education

& leadership development program

4 DC young people ages 13-21,

Who have been affected by

the juvenile (or adult) justice system

And/or are interested in

organizing for real youth justice.

PLUS workshops in hip-hop/rap, theater, poetry and more!

Thursdays, 5:00 - 8:30 pm

Starting July 20 - August 18

At the Youth Education Alliance,

2310 Martin Luther King Ave SE

(two blocks from Anacostia Metro)

****Kick-Off Event: Know Your Rights with the Police***

Monday, July 17^th 6:30-9:00pm at

The Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (SALSA)

1112 16th St NW, Suite 600 (between L & M Street)

(Red Line: Farragut North)

Participants can receive up to $100 stipend for completing ALL 6 sessions of F.I.R.E!

To sign up right away or to get more information:

Call Arja at 202-386-9809 OR 202-588-3580 X 13

or Email: anfreedomfighter@gmail.com

The Mechanics of a Walk Out

By Jose Andrade, Age 19

Photos By Ann Caton from the Youth Education Alliance (YEA)

It was a restless day at Bell Multicultural High School on April 06, 2006. It was the last day of school before Spring Break began. This was a much needed vacation after rigorous testing that students had just undergone. School administrators were anxious because they expected poor attendance on behalf of the students that day. Whenever there are week-long breaks from school it's naturally expected to have very low attendance on the day before the break begins.

To the surprise of the administrators, attendance on this day was as high as could be expected on any other day. Something was circulating in the new hallways of Bell Multicultural High School and the administrators wanted to know what it was. Little did they know that the answer would walk-out the front door later that day.

The reason the attendance was unchanged on this day is because a group of dedicated youth had taken it upon themselves to demonstrate how they felt about the current legislative heat wave around immigration reform that had been giving many Americans a burn. The name of this legislation was HR4437. To put it concisely, this bill would allow the federal government to criminalize all 11 million undocumented immigrants that currently live in the US and the people who help them.

YARG youth organizers and Bell student leaders destined this day to be the day students walked out in support of immigrants across the nation. It was the day the DREAM Act would be reintroduced to the House of Representatives. We decided to walk out just before the last period of the school day because we wanted to make sure people knew that this was not about getting out of classes.

The Mechanics behind the walk out were Margarita Juarez, Jose Lemus, Jose Funes, Judith Reyes, Oscar Calix, and me, Jose Andrade with the support of Danielle Kurzweil, Director of YARG. We decided that we should let our voices be heard in an organized and non-violent way and let our message be heard through the masses of participating youth.

"I may not be an immigrant but it is still important to help out my fellow peers. Let's just hope our voices are heard!", Margarita zealously told me when I asked why she decided to participate in the walkout. Margarita is a graduating senior with a 4.0 GPA who expects to go to college.

That was the general attitude of the 100 youth that decided to risk disciplinary action from the school administration and take their voices to the streets. Throughout the school day we had been hearing that the police had been called and that they were not going to let us leave. Some students were threatened that if they walked out they were not going to be able to graduate, would be kicked out of the Honors Society, or were not going to be able to go to the school dance.

We called Danielle from a school phone and she let us know that we had support from all over the community. Ann Caton and Jonathan Stith from the Youth Education Alliance, Marnie Brady from Neighbor's Consejo, LaDon James and Maricela Donahue from the Center for Community Change, Dana Walters from the Justice for DC Youth Coalition, Chitra Subramanian, and YARG's founder Natalie Avery came out to the school to support us and made calls and sent out emails to let people in the community know what we were about to do.














We decided to go ahead with our plan. We marched out in uniformity through the front door guided by a banner that read, "Si Se Puede" (Yes, We Can). Both administrators and teachers alike followed the youth marchers in awe, astonishment, and, for some, in unexpressed approval. We knew a lot of them supported us but couldn't officially announce it.

"I want people and the government to change the way they treat immigrants because at some point almost all Americans had parents who were immigrants...so they need to stop being hypocrites," yelled a student on a bullhorn as the marchers walked out into the sunshine.

The crowd of students assembled in an impenetrable mass of solidified organizing and pride. We yelled, we shouted, we walked and, most importantly, we delivered the message.

Supporting the DREAM Act and demanding that immigrants be supported in working for a better life for themselves and their families was the message, while unity and diversity was the guiding theme.

Our voices were heard. Danielle had sent out a press release, and when we reached the pavement The Washington Post (see our quotes on page two), WPFW, and several independent news sources immediately began jotting down the chants we yelled. The reporters tweezed a few students out the solidified mob for questions.

The crowd then got really motivated and expressive; we decided that we should release some of that motivation by marching around the perimeter of the school. Like a serpent smoothly bellying across open water we held our composure allowing no breaks in the march.

We demonstrated and delivered our message peacefully. We do recognize that we took a big risk and caused the faculty some uneasiness. In the end, the Bell administrators did not follow through on the threats and asked instead that we each write essays and make classroom presentations about why we did the walk out. We acknowledge and support our principal Mrs. Tukeva and the Bell faculty for the social justice work they have done over the years, however, now it is time to hand over the burdensome torch to the next generation.

PASS THE DREAM ACT NOW

Youth Action Research Group
DC Youth UNITE!!!
For a JUST Immigration Reform

Date: Monday, April 10th
Place: Malcolm X Park, 16th St and Euclid
Time: 12:00 to 3:00 Youth Rally
3:00 (SHARP!) March to the Monument
(make signs & banners, learn chants, and be interviewed for our radio show!)

Call YARG at 202-462-5767 for more information
(see flyer attached!!)

Whats up DC youth, youth workers, allies/adults who support DC young people!
We have been working hard pounding the pavement, doing presentations in our classes, talking to youth in our school lunch rooms - - inviting them to come out to a youth rally this coming Monday, April 10th ** see above for details. We met with youth from all up and down the East coast this weekend and we are coordinating our rally with youth from other cities who are organizing ACROSS THE NATION!!!

We need your help! to help get the word out. Come out to Malcolm X park on Monday, Bring your friends, and help spread the word to other DC youth and adults who believe in social justice and the rights of all human beings to work for a better life for themselves and their families.

Hundreds of thousands of people will be taking it to the streets this Monday in cities ACROSS THE NATION to protest against a hateful, racist bill currently being debated in congress (HR 4437) that if passed into law would criminalize 11 million human beings living in the US who are 'undocumented' and the organizations that help them (that means YARG!).

We are organizing to STOP these bills and to help pass JUST immigration reform, including a bill that will be reintroduced to the House of Representatives this Thursday - the DREAM Act - which would enable 65,000 students per year, who under current law are unable to go to college, to go to college and earn legal status (see attached fact sheet for more details).

As it is now, people have been living 'undocumented' in the US working hard, oftentimes doing backbreaking labor under unsafe conditions for very little pay to provide for their families because of poor economic conditions in their home countries, due in large part to US foreign policy.
STOP HR4437! WE WANT JUST IMMGRATION REFORM!

Students in DC, for whom DC is our home, have been working hard in our classes to graduate from high school. We need this bill to become a law so that DC students who have earned our right to go to college will be supported in acheiving our dreams.
PASS THE DREAM ACT NOW!

Love,
Danielle, Jose A., LaKeisha, Denisse, Judith, Aqiyla, Jose L., Margherita, Tim, Deja, Calix, Carlos, Nate, Stephanie, Sandra, and everyone else we don't have time to list!

Thanks for your support - see you on the streets!

Joining the Fight for Fair Immigration Reform

By: Jose Andrade, Age 19

This weekend, April 1st and 2nd, YARG staff (me and Danielle) and members (Judith and Jose L.) will travel to Newark, NJ to attend an Immigration rights training and march. This is a youth advocacy training to sharpen our skills as youth leaders and non-violent demonstrators.

At this training youth are going to learn how to use skills effectively to help their organizing and learn organizing tactics to help them win campaigns in their home cities or states.

"Young people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia are broadening their message for fair reform. Guest speakers at the training include civil rights movement leader Jaribu Hill who will instill the significance of young people‚’s positive and peaceful roles in social movements of the past." (From the Center for Community Change Press Release)

If you don't have anything to do this weekend, you might want to drop to New Jersey and participate in the activities.

See Below for Full Media Release

Students Join Fight for Fair Immigration Reform

Sharpen Advocacy Skills at Youth Training, Kicks Off with Youth March and Rally

WHERE: Essex County College, 303 University Avenue, Newark (training)
Grace Episcopal Church Office, 950 Broad Street, Newark (rally)

WHEN: April 1^st, 2006 at 9:00 am (training); 12:00 pm at Grace Episcopal Church (rally)
April 2^nd, 2006 at 8:30 am (training continues)

(Newark, NJ) In the past week, thousands of young people across the country have actively joined the fight for immigration reform. Youth are visibly taking action through non-violent demonstrations and school walk-outs from coast to coast in hope of influencing their political leaders to pass immigration legislation that’s fair and humane and include the DREAM Act.

Although The DREAM Act, legislation that would provide an opportunity to achieve a college education and a path to citizenship to undocumented students who were raised in the country, was recently approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the fight is not over. Hundreds of young people whose lives could be changed or whose peers would be affected by the immigration reform measures still under consideration, will congregate this weekend to acquire leadership and organizing skills during an intensive capacity building training and Rally.

Young people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia are broadening their message for fair reform. Guest speakers at the training include civil rights movement leader Jaribu Hill who will instill the significance of young people’s positive and peaceful roles in social movements of the past.

As part of the training the youth will engage in a rally and march from Essex County College to Grace Episcopal Church where several community leaders, labor unions, clergy members and young people will speak. Candidates for mayor of Newark are also expected to attend.

Newark hosts the second of five youth trainings organized by the Center for Community Change (CCC) and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement. Additional trainings are planned through early May in Phoenix, Salem and Nashville to motivate the energetic young participants into becoming the advocates they aspire for as immigration protests intensify around the nation.

# # #
The Center for Community Change is a nonprofit, nonpartisan low income advocacy group that promotes the development of community organizing as a national force for social and economic justice. FIRM (Fair Immigration Reform Movement) is a coalition of grassroots community organizations nationwide, working on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform and immigrant rights and is convened by Center for Community Change. www.communitychange.org.

Immigration: A glimpse of Injustice in Action

By Denisse Rodriguez

What's up blogger readers out there:

Here is a pretty interesting video about the Minutemen who are against immigrant rights, and the Casa of Maryland who are in support of immigration rights. I think this video really exposes the discrimination that not only immigrants, but us young latinos are facing as well. So, take a glimpse of injustice in action!

Latin Rappers that I think deserve more Respect

By: Jose Andrade, Age 19

I want to know, Why aren't Latin rappers looked upon with the same amount of respect as other rappers? For this post, I just want to highlight some of the Latin rappers that I believe deserve more respect.

Immortal Technique has political, poetic, and scientific sway in his rhyme scheme. He has the talent to rap as if he was an angry Harvard theologian or biblical scholar. He is a true revolutionary; a Che or Latin Huey of our time.

The Fourth Branch AKA the Media-
"The voice of racism preaching the gospel is devilish /A fake church called the prophet Muhammad a terrorist/ Forgetting God is not a religion, but a spiritual bond/ And Jesus is the most quoted prophet in the Qu'ran /They bombed innocent people, tryin' to murder Saddam /When you gave him those chemical weapons to go to war with Iran/This is the information that they hold back from Peter Jennings/Cause Condoleeza Rice is just a new age Sally Hemmings"

"Yeah.... Harlem streets stay flooded in white powder/Like those mother f**kers runnin' away from the twin towers/Gun shots rock the earth like a meteor shower/Bowling For Columbine, fair, giving the media power/Innocence devoured like a chicken spot snack box/Government cocaine cooked into ghetto crack rock/Corrupt cops false testimony at your arraignment/Check to check, constant struggle to make the payments/Working your whole life wondering where the day went/The subway stays packed like a multi-cultural slave shipIt's rush hour, 2:30 to 8, non stoppin'"

Big Pun has the lyrical ability of Biggie Smalls with a bit of Tupac mixed in with deep metaphor on the harsh reality of street life. He's a deep thinker and uses symbolism in many of his raps; a really large poet at heart. He has mastered the elements of story writing and incorporated them in his music; to think that he didn't even graduate from high school. He stands out as an example of what a Latin male can do if given the chance.

Rip in Peace.
Mama-
"I can murder half the world laugh while the other side hate me but hurt one hair on my mamma head and I'ma cry like a baby She my heart and soul; what Jimi Hendrix was to rock'n'roll/Made me believe I could achieve the impossible/Now you know one of my weakness's, but Punisher keeps it glizz"

"Brave In The Heart"(feat. Terror Squad)-
"Just some words to know - if you run the streets/come in peace or leave in pieces/Even Jesus was killed by the polices/They crucified him now they inject us with juice to fry 'em"

I think these few selected quotes really capture some of the creativity of Latin rappers. I hope that whoever is reading this piece can better appreciate Latin brothers in the struggle.

Shout Outs to YARG Members and Alumni

By Aqiyla Edwards, Age 16


YARG WANTS TO HIGHLIGHT OUR MEMBERS AND ALUMNI WHO HAVE CONTINUOUSLY DONE TREMENDOUS AND OUTSTANDING THINGS WITHIN THEIR LIVES.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT
Damaar, Kevin, Odaine, and Sachonho (with LaKeisha)




Antonio (TJ)


Balla, Carlos, and Sherrie

Why The Schools?!!!!!

By LaKeisha McKinley

Janey (DC Public School superintendent) is recommending that the District close an estimated 30 schools by August 2008. After many hearings and conferences that took place this year and last, it was stated that the understaffed, unsanitary detention center for youth of DC (Oak Hill) would take five years to be shut down and replaced with small centers used to rehabilitate youth. In contrast, the article Among D.C. Parents, Anxiety Over School Closings
stated that it should only take about 2 years to close down 30 of the District's educational facilities.

It seems that our government and our superintendent are trying to take the easy way out of fixing this problem. The schools that they are focusing on closing are being chosen simply because of low student enrollment. Some experts as stated in the article stated that buildings with low enrollment can be better utilized because they are smaller in population.

An interviewee of the topic (Jonathan from the Youth Education Alliance) stated that he feels that school closings can be

• ugly
  
• dangerous to the DC Public School system(because it will make charter and private schools seem better equipped to educate youth)
  
• also it highlights the inequalities between different schools in the District

He also felt that both William Lockridge's and Janey's idea were dangerous because, it could led to

• population problems as far as over crowding
• overcrowded classrooms(meaning that their won't be enough teachers to teach or space as time passes.)
  
• teachers will get fired(because of not having enough space)
  
• colocation (when they have more than one school in a building)
  

In his opinion the kids would react with a lot of them being upset and some being happy. Some of the things that he thought could be caused by this were

• Developers wanting to buy the property and use it for thier own purposes
  
• The community will speak out against it
  
• It will push charter schools more in the city

Janey is throwing out lot of bold ideas for someone who still hasn't gotten all of the special education students there books yet, but he is still raising the standards as far as what he expects of students.

Our city has a lot of schools that have the potential of being quality education facilities, but because of not having enough money to fund the programs and materials for the youth, and because of the new program Janey has brought to the city saying that if you feel your childs school can't teach them properly to send them somewhere else. Because of this schools in certain areas have had an enrollment decrease when in all actuality a big part of the reason they can't teach properly because of the shortage in materials and teachers. Instead of closing educational facilities they need to keep them open and give them what they need to make the situation better.

There are a lot of things that the schoolboard and government are changing right before our communities eyes, but unless we pay attention and say something as the people who these changes will affect; we'll become victims of of being excluded from the city of which we live in.

bell high school

NEW MEMBER POST #3

Bell, Bell, Bell, everything about Bell is so annoying, it makes me so mad that they show favoritism towards some students. Just last week this girl moved to the front of the room, even though she is supposed to sit in the back and she didn't get in trouble. But then, when two other boys moved to seats they also were not supposed be in the teacher said really quickly, "Move back to your seat!" I don't like the fact that every class has a seating chart, and if something happens to a student's desk then that person will get blamed, so we brought it to his attention and we just got in trouble . This makes me not want to even care.....


By Michell, Age 17

why I am trying to be in YARG

NEW MEMBER POST #2

My name is Doz3y and I am very happy to be a part of the YARG family. When I first heard about YARG I thought that it was going to be a good thing for me to get involed with. Yes, this is going to change my life I thought, and I see that it has. We meet every second Wednesday, so you know that's the only day of the week that I truely like. I know that this is going to be an inspiration for my life. I can see that I am going to get a lot from this. If you like to have fun you should come to YARG.

by Doz3y, age 17

Our New Members

The Youth Action Research Group has been successful in recruiting 11 new members! The new members have been busy working on posts to put on the blog. The new recruited members show us that youth want to organize for social change, and not just get into trouble like some people think.

Here's a preview of what one of our new members had to say about the rally we went to last week:

NEW MEMBER POST #1
"Well Yesterday, March 7,2006 was the Rally and even though I couldn't go I support fully what the rally was about because I believe that the government shouldn't discriminate against
immigrants."
Melissa Rivera, Age 18

Stay tuned, we will be having more new member posts all this week...