From July 20-24, 23 high school and college students will take part in SEA’s 7th Annual (and first-ever virtual!) Citizenship Tour. These civically-minded students will spend the week meeting and speaking with leaders in government, policy, nonprofits, journalism, and more. Our high school participants hail from 12 SEA member programs across the country. This week, our students have begun gathering to prepare for their meetings and to get to know one another. See below to “meet” a few of our Tour participants and who they’ll be talking with next week!
Abigail
Access Youth Academy
San Diego, CA
Issue you are passionate about: Climate change has proven to be a political, environmental, and social issue in the United States, and it is crucial that politicians and citizens across the nation understand the current conundrum. As a nation, we have failed to take appropriate action and just this past year the carbon emissions in the world were the highest in all of human history! That fact is crazy, and should have been enough to spark change but it hasn’t. I am excited to share my ideas with the members of the Tour and discuss pressing topics as such.
One word that describes you: Passionate. I love everything I do and usually spend lots of time trying to understand and contribute in the best way possible.
Melisa
Santa Barbara School of Squash
Santa Barbara, CA
Issue you are passionate about: An issue that I’m passionate about is immigration but specifically DACA. This topic is important to me because I have family members that are here because of DACA.
One word that describes you: Motivated
Tahneja
Urban Squash Cleveland
Cleveland, OH
Issue you are passionate about: The mortality rates of Black women during childbirth and why they are so high compared to other races of women.
One word that describes you: Ambitious
Ivett
Santa Barbara School of Squash
Santa Barbara, CA
Issue you are passionate about: The juvenile prison system reinforces criminal behavior rather than rehabilitating incarcerated children by not protecting them in the cells from other adults, punishing them ever more than others, and not giving them the help they deserve trying to become a better person. Not only has this opened my eyes to the juveniles being put in prison but to the percentage of people in prison are African Americans.
One word that describes you: Considerate
2020 Tour Speakers
Nisha Agarwal
Deputy Executive Director, International Refugee Assistance Project
Brett Holey
Senior Director, NBC News
Lester Holt
Anchor, NBC News
Rashida Jones
Senior Vice President, NBC News and MSNBC
Kathleen Kingsbury
Acting Editorial Page Editor, The New York Times
Franklin Leonard
Founder of The Black List
Alejandro Mayorkas
Former Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Wes Moore
CEO, Robin Hood
Deval Patrick
Former Massachusetts Governor
Aviva Rosman
Co-Founder and COO, BallotReady
Brent Staples
Editorial Writer, The New York Times
Admiral James Stavridis
Former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO
Scott Stossel
National Editor, The Atlantic
Jennifer Wynn
Director of Education, Obama Foundation
2020 Tour Participants
Abigail – Access Youth Academy
Melisa – Santa Barbara School of Squash
Reanna – SquashBusters Boston
Tyan – MetroSquash
Kyla – SquashSmarts
Alana – Racquet Up Detroit
Daniela – Santa Barbara School of Squash
Tahneja – Urban Squash Cleveland
Anthony – SquashSmarts
Makayla – SquashDrive
Sanaa – SquashWise
Ivett – Santa Barbara School of Squash
Julissa – Capitol Squash
Vivian – Access Youth Academy
Mariya – CitySquash
Adriana – Capitol Squash
Johanna – Squash Haven
Jayden – Squash Haven
Jayrene – Squash Haven
Yuliana – SquashBusters Lawrence
SEA Citizenship Tour 