By Matthew Duong
On Friday, November 15, I attended a one-day safety summit hosted in San Antonio by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) Youth Transportation Safety (YTS) Program as a member of the Collegiate Advisory Board! The event had participants ranging from high school students to college-aged students from various regions of the United States. The theme for this year’s event was “Ignite Change” and I, alongside a record turnout of 165 participants, learned how to do exactly that by learning methods of outreach for both us and our peers in the world of traffic safety.
After an inspiring round of opening remarks by YTS Program Manager, Lisa Minjares-Kyle, the Summit began with an introductory session led by guest speaker Orlando Espinosa. This session was a great opener for the overall event, as Orlando emphasized the importance of youth voice. In particular, he stressed that stories are more likely to be remembered by teens and young adults, alongside the idea that stories can assist with fostering relationships between strangers and friends through a personal sense of investment in our stories. We learned that sharing your story is just as crucial as crafting it, since relaying information is the only way to share our beliefs and highlight issues that are important to us!
Afterward, two smaller breakout sessions split up into separate conference rooms. The second session that I personally attended, led by Joshua Funches from the National Youth Bike Council, highlighted the top mistakes made by youth outreach advocates. He stressed three things that resonated with me and the other listeners: youth perspectives are both unique and diverse, the lack of focused efforts by youth results in loads of actual change ending up forgotten, and finally not speaking up is just the same as inaction in our communities!
The last two sessions I attended were just as insightful as the preceding ones! One session was led by the City of San Antonio’s very own Carla Rodriguez and Denise Galindo, who work as outreach coordinators for the city. They enlightened us on how the process of outreach actually works in real-life scenarios and how knowing your target audience is just as important as the actual engagement. The final closing session, led once again by Lisa Minjares-Kyle, solidified the ideas that we learned throughout the whole event as she tied everything back to the overall theme of the summit, igniting change within our communities!
The event wasn’t just all listening sessions though! While everything was very engaging, my personal favorite parts were the interactive activities TTI had prepared for the Summit! There was the ThinkFast Interactive gameshow: a wacky, but informative competition with a mix of both traffic safety concepts and general knowledge questions in a multiple-choice format, ending in a Jeopardy-style finale!
The All-Star Olympics was very enjoyable and chaotic as well, as it encouraged both collaboration and speed in multiple tasks as we raced for a podium finish. These events led me to make friends and acquaintances with people that I originally had never met. The Summit truly made its’ mark on me, as it motivated me to drive positive change in my circle. This was my first time attending the yearly Youth Transportation Safety Summit, but I would highly recommend it in the future!
Matthew is currently a graduate student at Texas A&M University and has been supporting the Youth Transportation Safety Program for a little over a year now. This is his first year serving on the Collegiate Advisory Board.
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