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How can we support young adults? How can we help young people lead happy and productive lives? I have been thinking about this a lot lately. So, I am collaborating with a team of awesome young adults to find out! Want to help us?

Young Adults Face Unequal Opportunities

Studies show that people gravitate towards what is considered “normal” in their environment. This also holds true for kids. For example, if your parents are doctors, you are 24 times more likely to enter the medical profession. If your family features many teenage parents, you are more likely to become one. One reason for this trend may be access.

Much of our education happens outside the classroom. We have access to our family’s resources, knowledge and connections. Those of us with well-educated or well-connected parents tend to take this access for granted. As a pre-teen, for example, I did office work at my parents’ company. My grandfather, a community activist in Bayamón, used to host local leaders in his marquesina when I was a kid. So, I registered to vote while still in high school. I got a student credit card at 18 because my mom, an accountant, explained the importance of establishing good credit. How did your family’s access shape your experience as a young adult?

How can we help young people bridge the access gap?

Young Adults are Part of the Equation

To help young adults, I must involve young adults – right?! I am lucky to have wonderful collaborators asking these questions with me. Esmarline De León and Grace Santana are both former Puerto Rico Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year recipients. They study, work, raise kids and still find time to advocate for other young people. Our diversity of experience makes this initiative richer. Another valuable collaborator has been Isaned López. As a social leadership intern last semester, she put together our initial young adult focus group.

We hope to bring together an Advisory Board of young people to guide our initiative moving forward.

We are Starting with the Questions, not the Answers

Our team is using a human-centered design approach. Our mindset is one of curious exploration. So, our initiative is currently focused on asking young people about their dreams for young adulthood and what they need to achieve them. We are asking them through surveys, focus groups and brainstorming sessions. Once we have a pretty good picture of what they need and want, we will build a prototype. What will it look like? We will let our target audience be our guide!

I can tell you that we have a few driving principles. The first is that our design will be sustainable (ie. cheap!) and widely useful. Secondly, we don’t want to take away resources from the non-profit organizations doing powerful work for young people. In fact, we would love to leverage their work and offer them an additional tool.

Want to Help? Find Us Under-Served Young People to Survey

We are looking for young Puerto Ricans (between 12 and 25 years-old) from under-served communities to take our Spanish-language survey. Are you a teacher? A counselor? A school principal? A guardian? A community leader? Please encourage the young people around you to click on this link and respond to our survey. You can also post this related flyer in your classroom, office, etc.

Also, please share your thoughts on how we can support young adults by posting a comment to this article.

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