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I had lived in Rochester for 4 years but I had really not gotten to know the community,
and what I realized as I was coming to my time of graduation was that I hadn’t really been a citizen of Rochester as a whole.
And so, Rochester Youth Year seemed like a perfect fit for me,
to really get thrown into the middle of important issues that were happening in the city that I was a part of.
I was born in Kosovo, for about a year and a half, my family, we spend running from place to place trying to avoid any conflict.
From personal experience, what I went through, with the war, I know and appreciate the help
that was given to us by the international community, and that’s something I want to give back.
I just graduated from the U of R this past May.
It’s a very rigorously intensive intellectual place. I needed a break from theory.
So that’s why I was really attracted to the program, was really wanting to see what my footprint is on the community.
Rochester Youth Year is a program that places local graduates into organizations in Rochester
that work to build programs that really alleviate the situation of youth poverty.
We want to empower youth, we want to get them to be citizens, community leaders.
I’m experiencing what it’s like to be in this particular area, and you hopefully leave it
in a better way than it was when you came in.
Going into education, which doesn’t seem like a natural fit perhaps for someone that studied health,
but knowing that they’re so intertwined, really has been a very natural thing
for me to come into another field which really focuses on the community.
At Rochester Refugee Resettlement Services we try to connect with employers.
We look around the area where there’s houses there that are not being utilized,
we remodel them, fix them up, and then we try to put refugee families in there.
My program is also a youth program, it’s called citizen explorers,
I do programs that allow youth to see themselves as people that can effect change positively in their communities.
What is great about taking local graduates is that you really get an opportunity
to have people that are fully aware of the resources that are available in colleges and universities
going into the city and then realizing, hey this is a perfect connection between the two.
Statistics don’t tell you everything, you really have to see the smiles on their faces,
just that gives me great satisfaction and joy that I’m helping out.
A lot of college towns all over the United States are having issues with “bright flight”.
This place is not only just good for you getting an education,
there's a history, and there are people in this area, in this city who would like your help.
If you ask anybody in this program, they’ll say, I did this because I wanted to make a difference.
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