Youth Advocate Network

    Our Youth Advocates program has progressed a lot; we have 8 new members and hopefully increasing. We meet every Tuesday at 5:30 to discuss our ideas and begin planning our upcoming events.  We have been taking and undergoing training where we were taught how to facilitate a meeting, and how to Action Plan for an event, We will soon be creating and joining groups with the YA in Agua Prieta and maybe Nogales. Some of our upcoming big projects are: a video about teenagers and the bad things that influence their lives, the annual Community awards, a meeting with the YA in Mexico and Migraton (where we donate food for nonprofit humanitarian organizations in Mexico) We are taking YA! Beyond the Borders..

By Giselle Busanes Douglas YA!

The Youth On The Border Conference held on March 13th with over 200 atendees.

There was awsome participation of many knowledgable presenters:

The Realities Confronting Migrant Children: Dr. Ana O'leary; Lorenzo Gamboa; Maleya Alessi;
Teen Relationship Violence: Sandy Bromley; Dora Taddey
Implications for Underage Drinkers: George Silva; Det. Raul Rodriguez;
Border Youth and HIV/AIDS:  Myrna Seiter; SAAF;
The Dangers of Meth: Jesse Medina;
Alcohol and its Impact: Dr. Tresa Thomas Masingale w/ SEABHS Youth Advocates-Jeff Gutierrez & Heather Lemley).

The keynote speaker was Luis Valdez, who produced the movies: "Zoot Suit" and "La Bamba"  imparted very personal experiences on the migrant workers? trail in California to inspire local youth as well as adults during a recent visit to Nogales. His message: ?Turn the negative into positive.?

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:

http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2009/03/24/community/doc49c904ab680c1170362065.txt

Retreat gives youth skills to be leaders in their communities

HEREFORD, Eighteen-year-old Karine Soto is looking forward to a presentation she'll be giving at a county board of supervisors meeting sometime in March.

The Nogales High School senior will be presenting information about substance abuse among Santa Cruz County's youth, and she hopes her message will shed some light on what kinds of things the community can do to help with the problem.

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2009/03/01/news/doc49aa172aae50c292862972.txt

Graham and Greenlee youth advocates attend leadership retreat

Twenty-eight youths from Graham and Greenlee counties had the opportunity to participate in the South-Eastern Arizona Behavioral Health Services 12th annual Youth Advocate Retreat.  The theme this year was "The Impossible is Possible."

The three-day retreat provided intensive leadership and community development training to New Turf's Youth Advocate teens.   Every year in February, four counties hold the event at Huachuca Oaks Baptist Camp in Hereford.  Youths from Santa Cruz and Cochise counties also participated.

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:

http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2009/03/18/lifestyle/doc49c025976faa4689582401.txt

Team Dynamics

Hey what goes on my name is Malenny Molinar, I’m from Graham County and I live in Pima. We got to do what is Team Dynamics and that was about people reviewing what we did during the events in the day. We learned about facilitation, presentation, and training skills. We got to tell Tresa that we learned how to plan any type of event. Nothing is impossible. We also got taught how to keep a meeting going smooth. Heather and Jaz taught us how to facilitate. Myra and Jeff asked about increasing YA members. We learned much fun stuff. Hope everyone had as much fun as I did doing this! Nos vemos ! !

Event Planning

Hey what’s up! my name is Linda I’m from the Douglas AZ Youth Advocates and today we had an activity where we talked about why we need planning for an event and some of the answers we got from different people was to be organized and to share everyone’s opinions and ideas.  Another question was what can go wrong? There can be a situation where the place we want to hold the place might be unavailable. Another thing is people out of control and not having enough money to do an event. It was a fun experiencing different skills. So I’ll make sure to keep you posted throughout the day. Chow

Action Planning

Hello, my name is Bree Anna Holcomb and I attended the Action planning training track.  During the session I learned when you are action planning, to follow through and to look for all of your resources. I also learned that it’s a ton of fun to just action plan. It’s almost like art in a way, with imagination and group assistance. It’s just fun to be with other people and think up fun ideas for plans. 

Training vs. Facilitation vs. Presentation

Hello my Clayton Weaver and I attended the Training vs. Facilitation vs. Presentation. I learned many group techniques, for example, if you would like to keep your audience to pay attention, you can stand and talk loud, that way they’re not looking down and speaking in a shy voice. You need to interact with the people. Talk like you want to be there. Act excited. Walk around as you talk. Make sure that while you’re talking your audience wants to listen.

Also, you have to be flexible with the group you’re working with. Its ok and I thinks it’s better if you are working with a teen group to just be your self. Dress how you would dress. When presenting in front of an audience, say the city council, it’s probably a good idea to dress for the part and talk professionally. They might not take you seriously if you’re all dressed up in purple. Body language is also important like I said earlier look like you want to be there. Have a smile on your face. Look people in the eyes. Be friendly. And try not to be distracting. No gum or food. It just looks bad if you’re chewing gum or eating food while trying to talk. I learned a lot and I’m looking forward to apply everything I learned.

 Last Monday, Feb 17th in Safford, a group of Advanced YA attended a skill-booster training to get ready to present, train and facilitate at the upcomming 2009 YA Retreat. It was fun, interesting and by the end of the day they all were more than ready to rock...they were ready to ROLLLLLL...