#PEAKScholarsSpeak: Scholar-Led Social Media Project Highlights Black and Brown Youth Voices
PEAK scholars have been sharing their voices through PEAK’s social media platforms. Twice weekly, a team of scholars meet virtually to plan posts and review the content you are seeing on PEAK’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
PEAK mentors and staff join them in these meetings, which have provided a valuable opportunity to deepen our relationships with the scholars and to learn from them, as they express themselves through art, photography, and written content. Just as important, through this project, scholars have more than risen to the task of supporting each other and their classmates during a time of conflicting emotions and an abundance to process.
The scholars have had much to adapt to recently, as we all have, and they have shown impressive resilience. Having to move to a digital learning environment during quarantine has not been easy, even with the support of their PEAK mentors and expert teachers. Some scholars’ neighborhoods have been impacted by more violence than usual in recent weeks. And, like so many Americans, many have been grappling with America’s history and legacy of racial injustice more intensely than ever before.
When one door closes another opens. School doors may have closed over recent months, but PEAK’s scholar-led social media campaign has proven a remarkable opportunity for scholars to gather, discuss, express themselves creatively, and share their perspectives with the world. “It's a good thing to help support others during hard times and gives us something to look forward to," said PEAK scholar William ‘22.
It is also a chance for them, as high schoolers, to practice real-world communication, teamwork, and leadership skills as they work together to shape the campaign and decide as a group how best to present their voices to the world. They have shared their pain and their vision, their past and their present, their worries and their hopes.
The scholars want to make a difference and hope their voices may be an inspiration to action. They want the challenges they face and those of their neighbors and surrounding communities to be heard and considered as we all transform as a society that works together.
We hope you’ll follow PEAK on Facebook or Instagram and stay tuned all summer and beyond as scholars and their mentors join together to leverage PEAK’s platform for social good.
