UPrising’s Youth Leadership Council was invited to the Little Village Youth Safety Network quarterly meeting yesterday to present on their project for the 22nd Ward’s Participatory Budget. Diana, Joshua, Reynaldo, and Kimberly represented the Youth Council, which allows the youth in the community to have a voice and advocate for change.

The Youth Council worked on the campaign for more than three months; planning how we could have better lighting outdoors for safety. They organized themselves to make sure everyone in the council had different tasks. They also made sure that this was a participatory campaign, interviewing youth, leading activities about youth organizing and participating in weekly meetings with different people in the community.

The youth worked on a video to show on the PB 22 Expo at LVLHS. Lastly, after all the organizing and outreach, the youth started door knocking around the community to get people to vote for their community project. At the meeting, some of the community leaders at the table asked the Youth Council what their next objective is. Kimberly responded, “We are going to keep making change in the community!” Diana also added, “After all the accomplishments, now we are confident we can make change in the community.”