YOUNG POLITICAL ACTIVIST: EAST CLEVELAND, OHIO

By Hrishikesh Deshpande, 12

Jonathan Lykes, 17 from East Cleveland, Ohio

Shaw High School senior Jonathan Lykes is not your typical high schooler. As a matter of fact, he was
called an “overachiever” by The Columbus Dispatch. You see, for the past year, Jonathan has been helping to lead the Ohio Youth Agenda, a group of high school students throughout the state who gather yearly to promote issues that matter most to Ohio’s youth.

In December, almost 200 teens gathered in Columbus to draw up the 2008 agenda, which calls for, among other things, more funding and services to schools to better prepare students for life afterward. (To check out the full agenda, go to www.myspace.com/ohioyouthvoices.) And soon, agenda members will lead assemblies in their schools to try to register every student who will be eligible to vote in November, as part of the nationwide “No Vote, No Voice” drive.

Can you please elaborate on the “No Vote, No Voice” campaign?

After we register all the students to vote in each county, we have a press event and pass
on all the youth registration forms to the board of elections. So hopefully, just bringing
youth together downtown at the board of elections will show that we are trying to defeat
the stereotype that youth don’t really care.

Are you doing anything with the 2008 presidential election and national stuff, or is it
just mostly Ohio and regional?

We are non-partisan, so we don’t take sides. (But) Ohio is a swing state, so if we can get
10,000 or 15,000 new youth voters in the state, that definitely give us the pull and puts us
on the radar screen of a lot of these candidates.

According to MTV’s Rock the Vote, this is the first year the leading Democratic
candidates have youth directors and youth voter outreach programs. What do you
think has changed to allow youth to feel part of the process?

I just think this is a big year once you start talking about change. I think that message of
change is spreading throughout the country, and that is really going to make a difference
of bringing the youth vote out. People start to get interested again and maybe think
something does matter, maybe my vote isn’t insignificant anymore.

 

Copyright 2008 Y-Press