Indira's Story of Self
14
plain
2019-12-17T08:22:23-08:00
The change I want to bring into this world is that I want kids to have a voice in the changes and policies that get made; whether it be about education or the changes and policies that are made by the government. With everything going on in the world currently, such as climate change, the voice of Greta Thunberg really inspired me and got me thinking that if a 16-year-old can be aware of and raise awareness of and for such a big topic, why can’t all of us have a voice and a place in the world to make a change that we will be impacted by.
A connection I have to the change that I want to make is, during my sophomore year in high school, I was part of the Student Engagement and Advancement Board (SEAB); where we worked with the education board for Saint Paul Public Schools to talk about the changes that need to be made within the policies that already exist and to also speak from a student’s perspective about new policies that need to be incorporated. One of the things we worked on was the graduation attire policy, in which before being worked on, students were restricted and could not wear anything besides the cap and the gown given by the schools to their graduation. Not being able to represent our culture while accomplishing a milestone was a problem to all of us, students. SEAB then started a project, where we reached out to students in every school in the Saint Paul Public Schools district to see what changes they wanted to be brought when it came to the graduation attire. They all wanted to be able to represent their culture. We, all the members of SEAB, then made a presentation and presented to the board members at a board meeting. Our appeal got approved so students were able to represent their culture and themselves. I remember my brother, who was graduating the year the appeal got approved, being super excited about wearing a slash that had Nepal’s flag (which I also wore, 2 years later, at my graduation). I saw many students, who proudly wore slashes that showed their culture.
Being a part of this project and the SEAB group, it made me realize that if we start from somewhere, as kids, even though we are working with people who have higher authority and are much older, we were still able to make a change. So, if we can, and have the knowledge and awareness along with the wants to make certain changes, we should be able to because it’s us that get impacted and affected by those changes. If we can do it, why not do it.
