There is a magic to speaking to others, magic I was deprived of when I was young. The dread of public interaction plagued me much like the rest of my generation. The overarching fear of failure kept me from achieving the smallest of goals. I was stuck, and I didn’t know what to do. In the 6th grade, I was down on my luck, I was afraid of everything and everyone, and the amount of Fs that littered my grade book looked like an impenetrable wall that forever loomed over me, reminding me that high school would be a mere figment of my overactive imagination. But, when I was hanging out after school, someone walked up to me and asked me a question that would change my life. “Hey, have you heard of YnG?”
YnG, aka Youth and Government, is a program for youth to be involved in politics. It’s divided into two sections, the middle and high school programs. The Middle School focuses on the United Nations, emphasizing world politics and striving towards peace. The High School focuses on California Law (at least in my area), emphasizing state issues and their practices through bill debate and judicial systems. Of course, being the kid I was, I immediately passed this off as a program for nerds to do nerd things, and I, was of course, not a nerd. But the flight to LA essentially had me hooked because I could miss that much more of school. I was told to meet at the YMCA on Monday at 6:30, which I did, to avoid homework, of course.
What followed was the greatest time of my life. All of a sudden, I felt as if I had importance in life. The tasks given to me were challenging yet fun. The people I met didn’t bring me down or give me things to numb the world around me, but instead, pushed me to be the best person I could be. The absolute joy in their eyes going to conferences and participating in cheers and debates brought a new perspective to my world. I realized I could be somebody. It was this push, this support, this euphoria of a future that pushed me to run for something in the 8th grade. I ran to be a chair for a non-government organization. I ran on a whim, and I didn’t know what I was doing at all. But when my name was called as the winner, I could barely contain my excitement. Learning became fun, and everything seemed to improve.
That was three years ago, and I am still in the program today. I aspire to graduate high school and go to college for a degree in law. We, as youth, as the future, need to strive for change. I learned that in YnG. We hold a power that no one else has: the power of new, fresh ideas, the power of change in a community that no boomer can take away from us. We need to learn this power, and if YnG can teach my middle school self that, then it can teach you that too.
