Letter: Why Gainesville needs a youth civic liaison program
Letter to the editor
Each and every morning on my way to Eastside High School, I see a different side of Gainesville that isn’t in the articles about the small college town, home to the esteemed Florida Gators. More often than not, I see scattered potholes across residential and main streets, abandoned and dumped garbage in our green spaces, and the heavy limbs of fallen trees blocking sidewalks and streets. After I learned my dad’s tires (and my own) have gone flat due to potholes, I began to wonder what we could do about it before the City could identify the issue.
I shifted my perspective from simply being a residential observer to an active citizen. I started to keep my eyes open whenever I was heading to the gym, walking through a local trail, or on my way to volunteer at GRACE Marketplace or the Food Bank. When I spot an issue, whether it is on the east side, west side, north, or south of Gainesville, I pull out my phone, take a photo, and file it directly to a report through the MyGNV portal, which I consider to be a great civic tool.
As the director of YouCAN (the Youth Civic Action Network), which I founded, I have done this, and the results have been eye-opening. So far, YouCAN has reported over 20 types of neighborhood issues, such as potholes. The City’s response has been prompt on MyGNV, resolving these issues in reasonable time periods and making our streets safer and cleaner. I feel a strong sense of agency, since I know I have made a difference when I see a pothole I reported get filled or a dangerous branch removed. It proves that the system works — when we participate in it.
As I have directed YouCAN, one thing I have realized was that one student’s work cannot solve the many and widespread issues throughout the city, and that I required a more organized network. Now I am proposing the formalization of a “Youth Civic Liaison Program,” which utilizes the already existing infrastructure in our schools: Key Club. Almost every high school in Alachua County has a Key Club, through which a substantial number of students have already dedicated themselves to community service. I currently serve as the Secretary of the Key Club at Eastside High School, and I can confidently say that my fellow students and peers would be willing to become more active citizens in their communities and neighborhoods. I am currently working on a plan for 30 to 40 high schoolers at my school that can help with addressing and solving these communal issues, and, hopefully, who are ready to serve as liaisons for YouCAN.
With this proposed model, students wouldn’t just pick up litter once a semester. Through a partnership with the City of Gainesville and MyGNV, students will be trained to monitor their own “blocks,” providing the City with a so-called “Monthly Community Health Report.” With these efforts, students will help the City to identify issues before they become accidents, building a proactive civic infrastructure in each designated block. I would like to say that we are the “New Kids on the Block,” and we are ready to serve our neighborhoods and communities.
I have already reached out to City Manager Andrew Persons’ office to propose this partnership. I am hoping to formalize a “feedback loop” through the “Youth Civic Liaison Program,” bridging youth to civic action networks for the City to continue to grow as a clean and safe place to live.
On behalf of my fellow students, we often feel our role in civic change and democracy is drifting far away from us — something that happens in tall buildings out in Washington, D.C. or Tallahassee. But I firmly believe that our civic participation begins when our community members realize that we have the passion to do something for our community.
My proposed “Youth Civic Liaison Program” couldn’t solve every problem in the city, but it would definitely do more than just fix potholes. It would be a statement to the rest of my peers and young leaders that our voices matter to the City leadership and that our contributions are a vital part of Gainesville’s future. We have the technology right in our pockets and the passion within our schools. Now, we just need the City to help us flip the switch.
Gainesville is our home. I am ready to take care of it, one block at a time, and I know you can.
Justice Nah, Junior at Eastside High School
Justice Nah, junior at Eastside High School, Gainesville, Florida, is the Founder and Director of YouCAN (Youth Civic Action Network: www.youcanproject.org) and has served as a volunteer juror, attorney, and clerk in Teen Court programs in Eugene, Oregon, and Gainesville, Florida for six years. Through extensive volunteer service, he has led donation drives collecting significant amounts of clothing, shoes, and household items for homeless shelters, as well as large quantities of food for local food banks. He is passionate about juvenile justice, youth civic engagement, and public policy.
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com. Assertions of facts in letters are similarly the responsibility of the author. Letters may be submitted to info@alachuachronicle.com and are published at the discretion of the editor.
A Scared Straight program for our wayward thuggin ‘teens’ might be a more effective program….don’t ya think?
Dumb kid, you aint old enough to comprehend the problems in this city.
You are in the south now, this ain’t Oregon.
Did you know Alachua County had the most lynchings per Capita of any place in Florida?
Did you know they met here in Gainesville, went to Rosewood and massacred those people?
You need to understand the history of a place before you try to think you can offer solutions for change.
Ask the black people over 60 how when they were kids they were not allowed to go downtown, or the white people and police would chase them away.
Core Principles of Civics
Rights: The fundamental freedoms guaranteed to individuals (e.g., freedom of speech, voting rights).
Responsibilities: The duties citizens hold to maintain a healthy society (e.g., voting, jury duty, paying taxes).
Governance: Understanding how laws are made, systems of power, and how government operates on local, state, and federal levels.
When the citizens fail to maintain a healthy society by looking the other way at injustice based on the skin color of the transgressed they are not doing their civic duty.
We still have no rights in North Central Florida and that’s why all the lawyers have collectively decided they will not file 1983 claims unless it is for police brutality.
That is systemic, FDLE, the FBI, Police and Sheriff’s they are all collectively suppressing the rights of minorities by failing to act when situations arise.
Look at the kid out in Hawthorne or Newberry, the one that was dating the white boys sister, and the brother murdered him and they claimed the boy shot himself in the back with a rifle.
Or my case for instance, a white girl caused the death of her own baby when she hit me and the medical examiner wrote a report that said I hit her on both sides of her car when the crash report says she hit me.
There can be no civics where injustice runs rampant and unchecked.
This is what I’m trying to tell you, civics is akin to equality, and that will never happen in North Central Florida.
I think I know you Justice, we have talked before you are a smart kid.
Not helpful.
So because it’s not deemed helpful, it means its not true?
Not at all, CS. Your observations seem genuine and concerning. I would love to have a more in depth conversation on this topic with you. Can you provide some form of contact for me here? If that doesn’t work for you, then watch for my campaign website going live this week. I use my real name here.
Common Sense, I am happy to privately pass on your email address to James if you approve it.
Thank you Jennifer for caring for your readers. You guys rock!
Civic’s does not work when those in power are corrupt.
It’s like trying to make a whore dress modestly.
You may get her to do it for a couple days, but eventually what she is inside will come back to the surface, and you’ll be heartbroken in the end.
America never did right by the black people, Black men still suffer injustices with no voice, what makes you think your civics is going to work?
If you learn history as it is and not as it has been taught, you’ll understand that America is the land of injustice and oppression, civics is not on the menu and never has been past the high school curriculum.
Black people have accomplished great things despite gov’t policies since the end of Civil War. Just because whites inherited property earlier does not guarantee success, or even a leg up.
Blacks who chose to integrate and follow the rules are more likely to succeed. Just ask the many who’ve reached middle class, but also pro athletes and musicians who followed the rules.
What a refreshing proposal from a young person looking for ways to contribute to solutions!
An app that reports panhandling in street medians would be a plus towards public safety…the city & county should be fined if they are complicit with panhandlers in street medians like at 39th Ave & Waldo road.. talk to DeSantis and create an app that fines city & county governments if they are not doing their jobs! We need Tallahasee to enforce the local enforcers who are not doing their jobs.
You can use MyGNV for reporting unsafe activities or camping on public property including narrow medians.
I don’t agree with the whole civics idea due seeing volunteer ideas turn into money traps and one neighborhood only deals. And sooner or later these programs turn into another tax burden.
At least he thought of something in an attempt to do better for the community. The city and county never seem to have any ideas of road repair except brick laying colored crosswalks or the next circle to no where goes.
All I ever see is Wild Spaces” government trucks driving on weekends to do shopping, go to church, and family hauling. I would not think a county owned full sized heavy duty truck was necessary for take home and use on taxpayer dollars. What emergency is happening at 3 AM for Wild Spaces to be involved in?
Thank you. It used to be NORMAL behavior. I recall the “Keep America Beautiful” public cleanup campaign decades ago.
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸MAGA