NYRA has written a Memorandum of Support for a bill introduced in the New York Assembly & Senate that would allow New York City to appoint 16 and 17-year-olds to local community boards. These community boards have an important advisory role in dealing with land use and zoning matters, the City budget, municipal service delivery,…
Politicians often think of young people as recipients of services rather than actors in the process. This type of thinking can lead them to make some offensive comments. These comments are borne out of genuine prejudice against young people and the knowledge that no one will stand up to defend them. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)…
NYRA Freedom Volume 11, Issue 5 June 16, 2011 Contents – NYRA Forms Coalition Requesting Apology from Rockefeller and Gingrich – Election Two Weeks Away, Annual Meeting Next Month – Effort Renewed to Put Youth on NYC Community Boards – Koroknay-Palicz Defends Youth Privacy at Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference – Bill to Curtail Corporal…
We’ve completed the 17th run of #16tovote on the 16th! It’s our monthly virtual voting rights rally on Twitter, where we tweet a lot about why the voting age should be lower, with the #16tovote hashtag. One goal I had for this one was to sit back and allow others to speak up some more….
This letter was sent on June 2 to the office of Brian Kavanagh expressing our support for this important bill that would include 16 and 17-year-olds on community boards in New York City. MEMORANDUM OF SUPPORT OF A5959/S3995 Sponsor: Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh/State Senator Andrew Lanza Provisions: Provides that members of Community Boards in NYC need…
Two youth-led NYRA-allied organizations have made great strides towards making a lower voting age a reality. In 2002, Cambridge, Massachusetts passed a home rule petition to lower the voting age through the Cambridge City Council and that legislation has been waiting legislative action at the state level ever since. In 2004 the Cambridge Kids Council,…
Dear Senator Rockefeller and Mr. Gingrich, As representatives of organizations representing the interests of young people we respectfully request that you apologize for your recent negative statements regarding young Americans. Senator Rockefeller: “It’s my general feeling that people who are 20, 21, 22 years old really don’t have any social values,” Mr. Gingrich: “it wouldn’t…
On May 1-3 leaders from around the world gathered in Washington, DC to mark World Press Freedom Day, a United Nations organized event promoting freedom of the press. This is the first year the event has been held in the United States. As host, this was a great opportunity for our country to promote the…
NYRA-NYU experienced a great increase in activity over the past few months and has held three successful events as well as being approved as a full NYU club for the 2011-2012 academic year. For National Youth Rights Day, the chapter held an event on campus titled “Activism 101”, which taught a group of interested students…
Here we are! We’ve have completed the 16th run of #16tovote on the 16th! A few regular participants were absent, and there were a couple of dissenters (one nice, one obnoxious), but other than that, went about as well as usual, touching on a lot of the great points we have in the past, plus…
