Aurora Sister Cities International is an organization committed to fostering civic engagement among youth because we strongly believe young people are the foundation of change in our country and around the world.  According to Youth.gov, civic engagement involves “working to make a difference in the civic life of one’s community and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes.” Nothing better exemplifies active civic engagement than the current movement towards racial justice in our society- and students have been at the center of that movement.

In this post, we are honored to share with you the work of one of our outstanding Global Youth Leaders. Hermela Goshu has been an active Global Youth Leader since 2017.  A true leader in her community, Hermela recently took the lead in planning a student-led Black Lives Matter protest condemning the death of Elijah McClain at the hands of Aurora police and medics.  Other Global Youth Leaders also joined Hermela to support the movement.  Here is what Hermela had to say during the entirely student-led protest.