During this week I have worked with Grace to write, refine and create the Project Proposal. It proved challenging as even towards the middle of the week we did not have a clear idea of what our project product would be. We looked at a lot of different organizations and projects that work toward encouraging youth to vote. There are a plethora of organizations working toward solving this issue, some have been successful, some not. Finally, we came across a website that intrigued and inspired us. It’s a non-profit called “Rock the Vote” that has accomplished a lot since their beginning in 1990. Still not having come up with an end result for our project, we decided it would be cool to reach out to Rock the Vote and either suggest partnering with them or get advice on tactics that have worked in the past for them to get young voters to the polls. I started the networking process by calling them and they told me to send them an email, which I did. We still have not heard back from them, but we are anxiously awaiting their response.
As an overview, this week we have done a lot. We wrote our project proposal and turned it in, contacted Rock the Vote and we created a survey that we have been talking about with students at the school. The survey is supposed to enable an organic conversation about voting, issues that are affecting youth in our country and how we could help youth as individuals become more involved.
On Tuesday night, Grace and I attended the Democratic caucus for our precinct. We of course couldn’t participate but we did observe and we left feeling even more passionate than we had before. Out of the 113 people that were there, only 4 were still in high school, with maybe 8 under 25. This solidified our idea that youth participation and voice is very low and had more youth been there, it could have changed the outcome. The caucus was very grassroots and organic, a community event. However, it was very unorganized and the results could have been highly inaccurate. It surprised me that this is how our country runs its democracy and gathers data on presidential candidates. Overall it was a great experience and I’m very happy we attended.
Our biggest struggle so far has been brainstorming creative and change-making ways to get the word out about the importance of voting. We are still in the process of thinking up new ideas and I think we will be for most of the project as more and more ideas come to us. I think this is important to remember as we dive into it. We are starting with the ideas we do have but leaving room for more. The next step we will take is to begin our research. We will gather data on voting percentages, information on each of the candidates and what they stand for as well as guidelines for voter registration.
As an overview, this week we have done a lot. We wrote our project proposal and turned it in, contacted Rock the Vote and we created a survey that we have been talking about with students at the school. The survey is supposed to enable an organic conversation about voting, issues that are affecting youth in our country and how we could help youth as individuals become more involved.
On Tuesday night, Grace and I attended the Democratic caucus for our precinct. We of course couldn’t participate but we did observe and we left feeling even more passionate than we had before. Out of the 113 people that were there, only 4 were still in high school, with maybe 8 under 25. This solidified our idea that youth participation and voice is very low and had more youth been there, it could have changed the outcome. The caucus was very grassroots and organic, a community event. However, it was very unorganized and the results could have been highly inaccurate. It surprised me that this is how our country runs its democracy and gathers data on presidential candidates. Overall it was a great experience and I’m very happy we attended.
Our biggest struggle so far has been brainstorming creative and change-making ways to get the word out about the importance of voting. We are still in the process of thinking up new ideas and I think we will be for most of the project as more and more ideas come to us. I think this is important to remember as we dive into it. We are starting with the ideas we do have but leaving room for more. The next step we will take is to begin our research. We will gather data on voting percentages, information on each of the candidates and what they stand for as well as guidelines for voter registration.
Both of these pictures are from the caucus. The picture on the left is a picture of Bernie Sanders that was hanging in the room, while the picture on the right is a list of rules for how the caucus should be run.