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Community Corner

Calabasas Youth Help Raise Global Awareness

Children enjoy fun and games at an educational event organized by Calabasas High students.

Calabasas teens helped organize a carnival-style event on Friday aimed at raising awareness of issues affecting the global community. 

Amid beating drums, carnival games and basketball contests, student and Girl Scout Troop 1754 member Emily Isaac, 17, helped share a message of advocacy with a large group of children at the Boys and Girls Club of the West Valley in Canoga Park.

The event was a part of the International Year of the Youth.

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“The International Year of the Youth is an organization started by United Nations and it’s all about rallying youth on big global issues,” she said. “This is an advocacy group that teaches the importance of speaking out on causes that you care about.”

Throughout the afternoon, children participated in drum circles, a “dirty water” toss and basketball contests, all while learning about serious global issues, such as the importance of empowering girls and women, clean drinking water and solar cooking stoves.

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“These stoves help women and girls who would otherwise be forced to leave the safety of the refugee camps looking for twigs and sticks for fires,” said Kristi Isaac, Emily’s mom and leader of Girl Scout Troop 1754. "Plus, they're better for the environment."

Manning the booths were four other troop members, several Skills, Mastery And Resistance Training Girls of the Boys and Girls Club, and two other Calabasas High students. Fellow troop member and Calabasas High student Maddi Pariser, 16, handed out Capri Suns while informing Boys and Girls Club members about the lack of clean drinking water in many African villages.

“As a troop we’ve done a lot of community service at clubs and holiday parties, and volunteering,” Pariser said. “Emily always especially enjoyed coming here.”

Emily Isaac and Pariser are president and vice president, respectively, of the Calabasas High chapter of the New Global Citizens. One of the group’s past projects involved arranging a campus visit by Monique Coleman, International Year of the Youth member and fellow youth advocate, to for the Malawi Well Repair Project. Coleman is best known for her role as Taylor McKessie in the High School Musical movies.   

Boys and Girls Club staff and members alike enjoyed the event.

“I’ve never seen this before. I’m pretty impressed with all the education,” staff member John Spindler said. “All my little kids were drummin’ away. My orange group, which is kindergarten and first-graders, loved it the most. It gave them a chance to be free and learn something they don’t know about.”

Spindler, 21, has been working at the club for two years and has been volunteering since he was 16-years-old. He manned the “Around the World” basketball station where children lined up in three different places in “the world” marked by placards, each with a different fact written on it. Before taking a shot, kids were asked to read the facts, like "In Liberia, more than 50 percent of girls don't receive an education.”  

Aside from learning more about the global village, children also had a good time, like Jacob Shakhbazyan, 9, a Canoga Park resident and Boys and Girls Club member since 2007.  

“It’s fun,” Shakhbazyan said after winning a prize at the dirty water toss. “But don’t waste water. Save water because the people in Africa are drinking dirty water.”

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