The Cupertino Courier
Community
Conference shows youth how they can get involved
By Cody Kraatz
More than 130 high school students from throughout the Santa Clara Valley learned how they can make a difference in the social and economic life of their communities at the Youth Voices United for Change conference held Feb. 9 at De Anza College.
The annual youth leadership conference, which also drew approximately 100 De Anza College students, was aimed at motivating students who might not otherwise think seriously about community activism. It was sponsored by the college's Office of Community and Civic Engagement.
Workshop sessions included "The Media & Arts in Social Change" and "Reality After High School." The students shared ideas and discussed how to apply them on a local level.
"This experience has influenced my decision about college. I never knew what De Anza had to offer until I went to this youth leadership conference," said Christine Vo, a junior at Independence High School. "It seems like a lot of the students here are involved, like it's a very unified school here."
For Nam Ngo, also a junior at Independence, the highlight of the day was a workshop about independent film and publishing.
" 'Making Your Own Media' taught me what different assets there are," said Nam, who makes short movies with his friends. He learned how groups can start magazines, radio shows and television shows from local youth media proponent Raj Jayadev of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a South Bay independent media collective.
Students had 11 workshops to choose from during two sessions, as well as cultural performances, speeches from organizers and a free lunch.
Students from Monta Vista, Fremont, Andrew Hill, Independence and Yerba Buena high schools attended, organizers said, with the last three East Side Union High Schools bringing the bulk of the attendees.
"This is my album, my heart and soul here," said San Jose rapper Demone Carter, who goes by Dem One on stage. He and co-presenter Hector Gonzalez, who graduated from Independence seven years ago, explained to a classroom full of aspiring high school artists the nuts and bolts of album recording, book publishing and T-shirt designing, helping them envision the possibilities of entrepreneurial pursuits.
"How much money do I have and how much money can I save? It did take a lot of work, but it's not beyond your means. It's something you can come up with," said Carter. The Andrew Hill alum warned students to be realistic about how many CDs they make and how many they can reasonably sell.
The two work with at-risk youth, offering hip-hop-infused motivational counseling and intervention through San Jose-based Unity Care's Hip Hop 360 program, which aims to enhance young people's social and academic growth by encouraging their creative abilities.
"It's not really education-dependent," Carter said of the recording 101 lesson he had just finished. "I, myself, I'm still going to community college just to get my degree together, just to legitimize my hip-hop career."
The conference also illustrated the De Anza community extends well beyond the district's boundaries. De Anza attracts almost 75 percent of its students from outside the district, including seven percent from foreign countries and some from out of state.
Associated Student Body president Tony Suen said he knows people who commute from Sacramento to attend classes a couple of days per week.
"That just shows the college is getting known to the whole community," said Suen.
For more information about Hip Hop 360 or other Unity Care programs, go to www.unitycare.org. To read Silicon Valley De-Bug Magazine online, go to www.siliconvalleydebug.com. For more about De Anza College, visit its website at www.deanza.edu.
