So today was the first annual Youth Advocacy Day here in DC. This day gives DC's youth a day exclusively for advocating issues that affect them. The youth were represented by the DC Alliance for Youth Advocates or DCAYA, for short. We, the youth, along with members of DCAYA spoke up about these areas that affect both the youth and the organizations: after school programs, preventing youth homelessness, and youth employment. We addressed our thoughts and concerns to several DC council members and staff.
First we had a session that introduced and framed the issues we were to talk about that that day. The issues were explained by three members of different DCAYA organizations. Questions were asked and we even had a friendly visit by At -Large council member Michael A. Brown which was pretty cool. After this we had a quick bite and trekked on to our first meeting. While we were looking for the location for our first meeting, we ran into Chairman Vincent C. Gray. This was an honor seeing as how he is a stark advocate for the youth of Washington.
We also had the chance to meet Council member Mary M. Cheh's chief of staff, pictured above. It was a nice little chat. We moved on to talk with two staffers who worked in the Office of the Secretary, pictured below. Since they didn't work directly with youth issues, they gave us a nice background as to what their office does. My memory isn't great so here's what the official sites tells us: "The
Office of the Secretary maintains an on-line Legislative Information
Management System (LIMS) that enables the public to view official
records, track legislation and review a weekly Calendar of Events that
lists all upcoming Council meetings and hearings."
Lastly, we talked to a member of At- large member Phil Mendelson's team. We talked about crime with him. When we finished our last meeting, we ate some lunch and debriefed. Woot! Can't wait till next year!
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