Five Ways You Can Make a Difference As a Student- Youth Initiative/Empowerment

1. Start a Club

Starting a club might seem like an intimidating job at first, but it is indubitably a great leadership experience. You can begin a club about any appropriate subject of interest, making it a fun opportunity to tackle. For example, if you appreciate the environment, you can create an environmental protection club and gather a group of students who share this same interest as you. This automatically creates a community with the same shared interest in making a change. You can create weekly cleanings in your community and school and inform others about the local environmental conditions and any foreseeable threats to avoid. Don’t be afraid and start that club today! Collective action is a great way to bring attention to any interest. It’s exactly what John Muir did with the Sierra Club!

2. Tutoring

Tutoring is a great way to get involved during school. If you see any student that needs some help in a subject that you may be proficient at, it’s great to lend a helping hand. This demonstrates a leadership attitude in taking the initiative to help others with patience to reach a goal. Usually, tutoring aims to help the student understand the subject material to perform well and to eventually pass a class. By taking the time to tutor, you make a difference in your community by helping a peer reach a goal closer to the next step in their life. You can also make new friends through tutoring and obtain different learning methods from each student. Teaching is a great skill to have, especially for the real world when you have so much to teach others from your wisdom.

3. Volunteering

Volunteering is a great way to get involved in both your community and school. There are so many routes as a student you can take to volunteer. Usually, schools will have connections with organizations that will accept student volunteers. If you’re in a club, it will consist of many volunteer opportunities. There are many volunteer opportunities for teens and college students at any local thrift stores, animal shelters, libraries, and local hospitals. Through volunteering, you will learn new skills, gain confidence, and create a network outside of your friends and family. You will help achieve a goal through a team when taking the time to volunteer, which will give you hands-on experience in making a difference in the real world.

4. Practice Sustainability

Sustainability is an important contribution one can make in the world. One way to contribute to sustainability is to purchase second hand. Purchasing clothing items in the second-hand market will reduce the need to manufacture new items and save resources. Thrifting simply keeps an individual’s unwanted clothes out of any landfills. Utilizing water refill stations at schools or universities is also a great way to practice sustainability. Saving and recycling plastic water bottles and aluminum cans is beneficial to helping the resources in the future of our world.

5. Creating an Outlet to Empower Others

If you have something you are passionate about, whether it’s sustainability or writing, you can create a network with others and share that passion. This sounds similar to the club aspect, however, there are different ways you can empower others in today's society. For example, Social media can be a great resource to empowering others to share your passion and multiply it throughout society. If you are passionate about mentoring younger students about education or college, you can create a blog about the importance of education. A Youtube channel can also be a great resource to empower others as well. I love watching college YouTubers and they have empowered me to become a better student and be more involved during my academic years.