Friday, May 14, 2010

Rural Reflection Conference

April 2010

10 students attended the WSU Horizons Rural Reflections Conference held in Moses Lake. Students attended a variety of workshops and meetings dealing with a variety of subjects including youth entrepreneurship, talks about the growing Hispanic Community; youth and adult partnerships; fundraising and boardsmanship; and how to use Grantstation (a grant finding database). Youth took the opportunity to network with other community members and truly show that youth are able to be a difference in their community when given the opportunity to try.

Engaging Youth, Serving Community Grant

May 2010

In partnership with the 4-H program the group will be participating in a new EYSC (Engaging Youth, Serving Community) to continue their work, giving the group additional training, funding and resources to continue their work in youth violence for the next 1 to 3 years. Included in this will be a Girls Self Defense and Date Rape Course (in Partnership with Sunnyside Police Department), Girls Sexual Assault Training (in partnership with the Grant County Domestic Violence), and Youth anti-Bullying and Gang prevention training (in partnership with Grant County Sheriff’s Office and Mattawa Police Department). Initial training will begin on a three (May 21 -23) retreat to be held at Silverlake Camp near Medical Lake. The Retreat will cover the following subjects to prepare the 12 students and 4 adults who will be attending the retreat, or the upcoming year.
• Youth Adult Partnerships
• Diversity/Inclusion
• Meeting Facilitation
• Issue Discovery
• Framing & Community Capitals
• Convening
• Action Planning
• Forum Planning
• Practice Forums
• Evaluation

Community Garden

April 2010

La Vozes Members and the Wahluke school district have partnered with the FFA and WSU Extension 4-H Master Gardeners to establish a community garden to raise food for local food bank. The ground for the community garden was donated by the Wahluke school district, across from the high school. Students will be maintaining the garden during the growing months of the garden.

Gang Awareness

April 2010

La Vozes co-sponsored an evening of local gang information for parents. Wahluke SRO (School Resource Officer) Grant County Sheriff Deputy L. Sanchez led a 2 ½ hour presentation to 100 community members on the growing local gang problem. Various presenters (including former gang members) were on hand to discuss how they entered gang life ad what local parents can do to keep their children form entering gangs. Youth were not allowed to attend the meeting, as pictures of local gang members (those who place their pics on facebook, twitter, and other multimedia sites) were shown to the community to enforce that idea that gang members are in the area, and many local youth claim affiliation to these gangs.

LEAP Conference

February 2010

Six members of La Vozes group attended the Latino Educational Achievement Project (LEAP). Attending various workshops with the goal that “all students will graduate from high school with the skills, acknowledged and confidence needed for success in post secondary education or in today’s information age and technology-driven workplace”. LEAP activities included:
•A legislative Day
•Student Leadership forums
•Public Education Workshops
•Advocating at the State Legislatures
•Educating and Advising Students how to create change in their communities using local government channels.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

WSU Sociology Students at Work for You!

Sociology 433, an undergraduate class at Washington State University, has been researching options and resources for topics that are important to your rural communities as you work to reduce poverty. Topics include: affordable housing, neighborhood safety, youth activities and much, much more.

Your community may be in contact with one of these teams, but all of their research may be relevant to the issues you are addressing. Click to the Horizons website http://www.horizons.wsu.edu/project/horizons3/community.html to read about their work.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Good by Mr Martinez


One of our best has left us for a new place and a new position. Mr Martinez has gone to Pasco HS. He will now teach and inspire a new group of students in a new location, but he will always be remember here, with us, in our hearts.


He was our teacher, our mentor, our counselor. He believed in us and was there for us when others wouldn't stand by us. When we needed him he became our shoulder to cry on, our chauffer, our chaperone, but mostly our friend. He will be missed, and we await the day when he returns to teach us once more.