Colorado Voices
Meet the high schoolers creating change in Grand Junction
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Meet the students making youth voices heard in the Grand Valley
High schoolers with West Slope Youth Voice are taking it upon themselves to make sure their generation is heard in local and statewide politics.
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Colorado Voices is a local public television program presented by RMPBS
Colorado Voices
Meet the high schoolers creating change in Grand Junction
Clip | 3m 59sVideo has Closed Captions
High schoolers with West Slope Youth Voice are taking it upon themselves to make sure their generation is heard in local and statewide politics.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[Music] Even if we can't vote, that doesn't mean we're not people.
And that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be represented.
And so, I think it's really important for students to understand that, but also for parents, for teachers, for our elected officials themselves, to understand that these are people that need to be represented.
I'm Mila Stepan.
I'm a junior at Palisade High School, and I'm a head intern here at West Slope Youth Voice.
We are a group that is focused on getting students to come together to voice their issues that they've noticed within their school or within their home life that they feel they need changed or just brought to light.
Our official mission statement is that we serve to engage students in our democracy and work with elected officials to get student voices heard.
My name is Charlotte Allen.
I'm a senior here at Palisade High School and I'm one of the two head interns at West Slope Youth Voice.
So I think our two major victories this year is the school board forum and then getting the district to approve a school-based health center at Grand Junction High School.
There's a school-based health center at Central High School in the valley and that has reduced suicide rates almost completely there.
The school district this year in March voted against including that at Grand Junction High School, and all of us were really upset.
And then when I joined the summer, we had an opportunity to get them to reverse that decision.
We as a group West Slope Youth Voice, stand in support of placing a school- based health center in Grand Junction High School.
We kind of just push through with, a bunch of people who just live in Grand Junction saying that it was not possible.
Like, no, we're not going to listen to a bunch of teenagers and, you know, just our voice, our collective voice truly just impacted the school board to truly understand where we're coming from.
Our student survey like really highlights a few major things and these often have to do with mental health and feeling safe in schools and usually food, like healthy food for students is up there as well.
One of the big things that we ask is whether or not students want to stay in the valley.
We ask why do you want to stay?
Why do you want to leave?
And a lot of the reasons why is because there's not opportunities for the youth.
And so that's something that we take to legislators a lot.
And so that looks like anything from going to committee meetings to going to the House session during the Senate session to meeting all of our legislators.
A lot of these very high-stake conversations that not many adults think that students care about, not only that, but we've taken those conversations and implemented them into our school district, into our local democracy here.
The school board forum that we held was unlike any other.
We had all five of the school board candidates in one place went through all of our questions and we were able to ask a mix of very direct yes or no questions and then questions where they got to explain themselves.
In the past we've seen voter ages 18 to 24 be the lowest turnout.
But that number keeps rising.
The more younger generations are getting involved, they're being more active and they're understanding politics more and they're wanting to be more involved.
So it's important to have those opportunities and be able to say, I know what's happening in an election.
Before I joined West Slope Youth Voice I felt like I was kind of in a hopeless situation, at least until I was 18, because I felt like I did not have a voice and I just felt like I couldn't be heard.
And joining West Slope Youth Voice helped me really notice that I could make a difference.
And I think a lot of that is just the sheer amount of people that I've talked to that have listened to me.
I'm 17 and I've spoken to probably more elected officials than most adults.
I think that really helped give me hope going forward.
When life gives you a house, move it.
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Colorado Voices is a local public television program presented by RMPBS