Students gain leadership skills on trip to Jefferson City

Identifying the needs in our community can be considered an easy task, but raising awareness, understanding, and appropriately addressing the needs and issues is something that takes training as well as commitment to accomplish.

Five members of the Boys & Girls Club of the Heartland — Missouri State Youth of the Year Logan Luke, Ambria Campbell, Aiden Nguyen, Crystal McGee, and William Campbell Jr. — as well as nine other youth representing several afterschool programs in the state took their first steps last week as they traveled to Jefferson City to attend a two day Youth Advocacy and Leadership training provided by the Missouri Afterschool Network.

During the training, youth covered topics such as communicating with legislators, voting, discovering who your audience is, and ways to let your voice be heard. They also scheduled peer interviews and made one minute commercials over how to introduce yourself. Once youth identified issues the group was passionate about, they discussed appropriate ways to raise awareness as well as steps they could take to get influencers on board with assisting with the issues. It was important for youth to understand that when identifying an issue not to start off with an impossible task. You need to start off small and locally then your voice will spread. William Campbell Jr. said “You must learn to think outside the box.”

Youth then had the opportunity to tour our state capitol to see where important decisions are made and rallies are held. Ambria Campbell stated, “You have to start somewhere, but I will work here one day. I am inspired to be a part of making a difference.”

To conclude the training, Logan Luke was asked to lead the business meeting to discuss how youth in the group want to participate moving forward, who else they want to bring into the group, what are the common goals, and what else would they like to learn about. Logan made the comment “Learning is the key to success and I have gained the drive to bring youth from everywhere together.”

Aiden Nguyen commented, “I’ll start leading programs and we will start to produce the change. We want to not only make our school and afterschool better, but also our community. We have the ability to start youth advocacy and other kids in our state also strives for a better change.”

This training has brought youth as well as their adult leaders together who share a common goal of making our world and afterschool program a better place. The members of the Boys & Girls Club of the Heartland are excited to put what they learned into place and start taking action. Crystal McGee mentioned, “I will spread the word and teach other youth how to help our community in our own way and make it fun for others to learn. You must always push past your boundaries because no matter what it will end well.”

If you are a community leader and would like to speak to our young future leaders who participate in our afterschool program please contact 573-776-1690 or email rtoth@bgcpb.org.

Robbie Toth-Cosby is Executive Club Director of Boys & Girls Club of the Heartland in Poplar Bluff.