In preparation for our 3rd annual Student Voice Summit, Mindful Practices had an opportunity to chat with Melivia Mujica, a first generation college student, currently a senior at Texas A&M Kingsville. Melivia is no stranger to using her voice as a young person to enact change in her community.
As a high schooler, Melivia was a dedicated student, but even so, she still felt like she didn’t quite belong. This experience in itself isn’t uncommon for middle and high school students, but what Melivia did in response shows us the resilience and power that young people can have when they speak up.
Melivia and a small group of peers who also felt uncomfortable at school began meeting in a teacher’s classroom during their lunch to create “Enrichment Club.” Originally, Melivia reports that she and a lot of the other students in Enrichment Club were coming from an extreme place of angst, but instead of staying in a place of commiseration, they began brainstorming ways to resolve the issues they were angry about.
One of their first projects was to organize a ‘Know Your Rights’ seminar and bring in immigration advocates and lawyers from RAICES to present to all families and students about their rights and how to keep safe.
From the success of this Know Your Rights seminar, they realized that they did have a voice, student issues did matter, and that they could make a real difference in their community. This inspired them to keep tackling difficult issues they noticed, and eventually resulted in the creation of The Care Zone.
