By Kevin Fong
SYLP student
You might be wondering, what is the Summer Youth Leadership Program? Well, it is an amazing program filled with fun learning experiences.
There are so many things that happen in this program that it is almost impossible to name them all. You get to learn about what it takes to be a leader, meet very cool and informative speakers, meet new people, and even get food from the area — for free.
Through this program, we met a community activist named Bob Santos, who told us about some of the International District’s history. Another day, we met news anchor Lori Matsukawa, who told us about how she got to where she is and showed us around the Japanese Cultural Center. We also met Thach Nguyen, who showed us that we can be successful no matter what we do.
The program isn’t only about listening to speakers. We did things ranging from martial arts to hip hop dancing. Learning martial arts was great because it not only acts as a way to defend yourself, but it’s also good exercise. We also learned how to dance to songs like “Down,” by Jay Sean, and “Wedding Dress,” by Taeyang.
During this time, you meet several new people from around the area and get to make many new friends. You get to branch out your network even further.
Every day, I always looked forward to going to SYLP. ♦