Our Big Take-Away

Our Big Take-Away

Hey, it’s Alondra Young! I am the Building Healthy Communities Youth Engagement Coordinator from Sacramento! I had the privilege of working with the awesome people at the Center for Regional Change last summer, using their Putting Youth on the Map (PYOM) website. In late June, I and other youth leaders from Sacramento hopped on the local city bus and rode up to the UC Davis Campus from Sacramento. We were able to receive an introduction to PYOM, meet CRC faculty, staff and graduate students, and receive a pretty cool campus tour! During our training, we learned about the importance of data, navigated the PYOM site, read maps, and learned about the Youth Well-Being Index and the Youth Vulnerability Index

Our big take-away from this training was being able work with other youth leaders by using these tools. This introduction led us to host a four-session training for other youth leaders in the Sacramento area about how to use data in our advocacy work. We are now all working together and are using our data mapping skills on the Grades Up Campaign! This youth-led campaign is intended to provide youth with free academic and community resources that allow students to succeed in school. It also provides a platform for youth to build confidence and have an active voice in their education. PYOM has been a very useful tool in enabling us to get access to data, and providing a platform for youth to work together and have a voice!

Hi I’m Alondra Young, and I work for People Reaching Out, where I am the Sacramento Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Youth Engagement Coordinator. I am the adult ally who helps guide the Sacramento BHC Youth Leadership Team. This team is made up of 10 amazing youth leaders who are eager to create change in their community. For fun I LOVE to run. Just recently, I ran on a 12-woman relay team in a 205-mile race called Ragnar. We ran from San Francisco to Napa Valley!