Summary of Public AchievementPublic Achievement is a youth civic engagement initiative focused on the most basic concepts of community organizing, equity, and social justice. Public Achievement draws on the talents and desires of individuals to organize for social change. PA takes place over the course of a school year and culminates in a project/initiative, which is then presented by the youth to a community audience at an end-of-year showcase. DU undergraduate student "Scholars" facilitate PA, and graduate student "Fellows" assist with facilitation and provide a coach/support role. This academic school year 2021-2022, DU got the opportunity to work with Dr. Martin Luther King Early College.
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Vincent RobinsonFellow |
John MacikasFellow |
Marissa Martinez SuarezScholar |
Daniela ChavezScholar |
What it has meant to me to be a PA ScholarAs someone who is looking to go into education in the future, PA has given me the opportunity to work with youth and learn alongside them. Through this experience i've gotten to foster meaningful relationships and refresh on the community organizing process. In my time working at DMLK, I was able to see students grow and realize the power their voices hold. As the school year past, I was able to see the ways students fostered a space to have discussions on issues that often go unspoken of and take steps towards taking action. It was truly a space for mutual empowerment that the students created in the journey of building up their project. I am beyond grateful that I got the chance to work with these future change agents. My experience in with PA has only excited me more for the future to continue to work with youth and engage more in these critical conversations.
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Building a Foundation:Building a Foundation: Students filled out a pre-assessment to see their thoughts and views on what community organizing means. The themes we noticed in the pre-assessment were more of a sense of personal agency with statements such as "I can" and "I do." Students see taking action to be more individualistic rather than community-driven. There is also more of a surface-level understanding of social justice. Students also take a lack of notice of institutions' influences on issues; for instance, they see the school as a separate actor from the issues occurring.
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Issue Selection:Issue Selection: This was one of the longest phases of the five. Although from the start, students made it clear they wanted to tackle the issue of gun violence due to personal experiences, there were multiple layers behind why the issue exists and its effects that the students worked on unpacking. To learn more about the issue, we brought GRASP and Project VOYCE to be community partners as the students further dissected the issue. With the community partners, students could voice what they already knew about an issue and express what they wanted to learn more about. Students also engaged in activities where they learned about issue vs. problem, social justice vs. charity, different types of power, understanding privilege, root causes, and other concepts relating to tackling issues. In the end, students saw the issue of gun violence impacting students' sense of safety, mental health, and school attendance, and they discern the potential causes to be rooted in easy access to guns, a cycle of bullying/retaliation, adverse experiences at home, a lack of access to/engagement in mental health services, and gang activity.
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Issue Research:Issue Research: For the issue research aspect of the phases, students primarily created surveys they gave to their peers and teachers. The purpose of their surveys was to understand more about people's perceptions of the issue and how it impacts their community. Students also used open media resources to learn more about the issue's history. Finally, they presented their findings at a community panel where they could discuss their findings' implications and start formulating ideas for taking action.
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Taking Action:Taking Action: The students decided they wanted to create a course to not only inform people on the issue of gun violence occurring in the community but also to provide resources that their community may need. They listed the purpose of the course to be as follows:
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Review and Celebration:Review and Celebration: To celebrate the students' work, the students presented their work and findings at an end-of-the-year showcase at the University of Denver, where family, friends, and community members were present. Many heard about the students' work with more than 100 people present. It was a moment to celebrate all the students' hard work and the way they were able to harness the principles of community organizing.
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Post-Assessment:Post-Assessment: On the last day of class, we handed the students post-assessments and had our own more intimate ending celebration. Themes we notice change between their pre and post-assessment, more of an emphasis on collective agency with more statements such as "the people," "we," and "community." Students recognize the importance of collective collaboration with a common goal. There is more of an in-depth understanding of how social justice can be used to change the norms in underrepresented groups. Students are also able to analyze the role institutions play in contributing to issues with students discussing the lack of representative and meaningful curriculum taught at schools. There is a significant change between the pre and post-assessment that reflects the student's growth in being more critical of their surroundings and the skills they gained in the community organizing process.
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Scholar ReflectionsMy experience as a PA scholar has taught me a lot about community organizing and working with youth. One of the main lessons of this experience is the power that youth hold to spark change. At the beginning of the academic school year, I was unsure of how things would pan out and was a bit worried if we would even have enough time to start a project. However, in reflecting on the pre and post-assessment, I've learned that the project was one of the more minor accomplishments compared to the whole journey. The product of the class course was truly the columniation of going through the community organizing process throughout the year. Students were able to grow in their community organizing skills, learn to be more critical about their surroundings, and take action. Although at times, it would seem unclear where things were headed in the project, the students never lost focus of the change they wanted to make- bring more awareness to the issues of gun violence and help their community feel more secure. I believe that the most impactful part of this journey was seeing the passion students brought and embodying the principles of community organizing. I am excited to see where the students continue to take their work and the impacts they will make both within and outside of this project.
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