The Youth Leadership Academy is nearing it’s end for 2021 and looking back to a virtual year full of learning, engagement, and of course, inspiration. 

The 2021 cohort of YLA students has come ready to make change and is hungry for more. Students engaged with a variety of speakers and topics, from conversations about transportation with the California Transportation Commission’s Chief Deputy Director, Tanisha Taylor,  housing issues with SACOG’s Dov Kadin, out-of-box planning approaches with urban planner James Rojas, to environmental justice with SMUD’s Jose Bodipo Memba and much more. Students had inspiring and hard questions every workshop and are doing their part to stay engaged and advocate for their communities.