Join Youth Journalism International for a special panel discussion about this project on Saturday, Oct. 17 at the Maine MILL at 1 Beech St., Lewiston, Maine. The talk begins at 1:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The timing is especially exciting because an original of the U.S. Declaration of Independence will be on display at the museum that day. In addition, U.S. Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, will be joining the YJI event remotely.
Lewiston, Maine, U.S.A. – In America’s 250th year, Youth Journalism International students sought to find out how the promises of the Declaration of Independence – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – are serving young immigrants today.
Student reporters interviewed local immigrant youth and other young people who come from immigrant families to learn their stories.
Though many of those interviewed spoke of opportunity, each story is unique and interesting. All will be published here on the Youth Journalism International website. A collection of links leading to each article will be listed below.
In addition, some of the Youth Journalism International reporters who conducted the interviews elected to contribute to first-person commentary about their own feelings about America and lessons learned doing this work.
Reporters Carlos Fra-Nero of Lewiston, Samya Young of Union, Maine, and Noga Segal of Israel conducted interviews with young people with family roots in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Malawi Tanzania and Peru.
Amina Bashir, an Artist and Illustrator with Youth Journalism International, made the American Reflections logo.
Audio recordings of each of the individual stories are on the Youth Journalism International channel on SoundCloud.
This project was made possible in part by a grant from the Maine Semiquincentennial Commission.
Founded in 1994, Youth Journalism International is an educational non-profit organization based in Maine with students worldwide. It has published the work of young people from every continent on Earth and has never charged a student to participate in its Global Classroom.