GW Civic Changemakers Help Young Voices Shape Their Communities

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A 2023 JAMA Network Open study that analyzed behavior traits from more than 50,000 youth and adolescents found significant evidence suggesting that when young people engage in community service or civic activities, they experience notable improvements in well-being.

Not only did these children and teens find a sense of belonging and purpose, but they also experienced higher overall health ratings and fewer behavior problems. Essentially, when youth partake in meaningful civic work, they develop the skills and confidence not just for themselves, but also for their communities.

Through a Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service program, GW Civic Changemakers, student interns at the George Washington University spent their summer teaching Washington, D.C., middle school students how to be active participants in their own networks and circles.

The program, which the Nashman Center has offered a version of for the past nine summers, is a five-week, hands-on crash course in which GW interns guide D.C. middle schoolers through a project that has a positive and meaningful impact on their communities.

While working on projects, students also build their reading, writing, communication, math and critical-thinking skills. They talk with and hear from local leaders and participate in field trips designed to increase civic awareness.

At the end of the five-week program, students share their projects in a public presentation-which took place last Friday at Eliot-Hine Middle School-with parents, friends and community leaders on hand.

"They're doing community engagement projects, and in a way, they're providing a service, even if they don't realize it," said GW intern Makda Johannes, an international affairs major.

The topics are always wide ranging-from improving access to period hygiene products to advocating for healthier school lunches to sharing awareness about neighborhood gun violence-as students tend to pick something particularly relevant to their own lives.

Prior to the five-week program, the GW student interns meet every day for four weeks of training as they prepare to immerse themselves into the D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) culture.

Once the training is over and it is time to meet with the students, the GW interns begin the program by asking them to think about their identities as members of their community. From there, they ask them what issues they've seen in that community, whether through family members, friends or their own direct experiences. They then collect that information and brainstorm a topic that will be the center of each project. Finally, once a topic is established, they come up with creative ways to present information and encourage action.

"These are all issues that the students themselves raise, and that's really the purpose of the Civic Changemakers program," said GW intern Cassie Abano, a political science major and STEM teaching minor. "As interns, we're just supposed to be guides who help them find information and navigate the process. The rest of it is really their voice and their ideas."

Philosophy major Alfred Lewis Jr., another GW intern, oversaw a group of students who wound up creating a poster that included facts about gun violence, specifically in D.C. and among youth. During the project, they met with organizations such as Students Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety to learn more.

They then included those facts on their posters, where they also provided a QR code that linked to a video featuring the students raising awareness. They plan to put those posters around their neighborhoods and their school, Lewis said.

Lewis Jr., like the rest of his fellow GW interns, came away impressed by the middle schoolers' resolve. He also appreciated learning along the way how to get the best outcome out of these students who are so clearly passionate and knowledgeable about their topics, but perhaps just needed a little guidance.

"My biggest takeaway is that when you're working in school systems, you have to be willing to adapt," Lewis Jr. said. "That comes from allowing yourself to be changed by what the students are telling you, and not just seeing yourself as the educator, but also being willing to be educated by them. That's how you create a truly transformative learning process."

To ensure students remain engaged, GW interns also incorporate fun activities into the full days. This year, on Mondays, they focused on "powerful words," where each week they did something different-crafting poems, songs and even ciphers-to show alternative ways of expressing what they were trying to articulate in their projects.

What GW interns see in these students is a lot of potential and, unfortunately, a lot of unheard voices. By establishing these civic engagement patterns so early on in their lives, they hope to offer these middle school students a path to improved well-being for both them and those around them. And in turn, the GW interns themselves learned how to be effective communicators so that they can continue encouraging future changemakers to make their mark on society, one step at a time.

"I think they have a lot to teach me about the world. They're underestimated, and it's important to listen to people who typically aren't listened to. Right now, I think that's young students," Abano, an aspiring teacher, said. "I also think Civic Changemakers has taught me to reflect a lot more on my own experiences and how those experiences shape the way I view other people and different contexts."