DURHAM: It’s hard to believe we have two weeks left at Democracy NC… the summer is going by so fast! And although I look forward to going back to UNC for my last year of college, I’m really going to miss this internship. For the past month and a half, I have been learning so much about what it means to be a community organizer. On Tuesday, Brian and I visited YO:Durham, an organization dedicated to serving at-risk youth in Durham. We talked to about 30 students ages 15-17 for an hour and a half. They were so much fun! They were up doing skits and lots of group work the whole time. The theme of the morning was how they could bring change to their communities… it was like a mini-Wellstone training! I was struck by the way that these young people could really pick out the problems that they face in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods, and how they were able to communicate those problems. I was even more struck by the solutions that they thought of; they were so creative! It was encouraging to see these kids show a genuine interest in changing the life of their communities.
Another big project we worked on this week was our research project, which consisted of looking up campaign contributions from people appointed to different boards and commissions by former Governor Mike Easley. We definitely got to see first hand that there’s LOTS of money going to political campaigns from NOT a lot of different people!
As the week winds down, we’ve been less crazy than we have been for the last 7 weeks… it’s nice to have time to sit down and read some recent news articles about voter-owned elections and post on our blog!
Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!
-Cristina
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