Jannelly La Hoz has been a member of the Youth Power Project for four years and will be at the top of the first graduating class at the Bushwick School for Social Justice, the high school that Make the Road helped found in 2003. As a graduating senior, Jannelly is waiting to hear from a range of great colleges regarding her application, and plans to study pre-law as a college freshman. She currently participates in virtually all of Make the Road’s after-school programs, including our Youth Theatre Collective and Word on the Street, the youth-produced newspaper. Last summer, Jannelly was selected to participate in the prestigious Youth Organizing Institute at New York University, and currently works as an intern in Make the Road’s Legal department.
Jannelly’s story embodies what can happen when good kids get great educational and enrichment experiences like those offered by Make the Road by Walking.
In addition to Jannelly, over 1,200 students participated in Youth Power Project activities in 2006. At BSSJ, our partner high school, the graduation rate is anticipated to be 80%– a stellar result for any New York City public schoolespecially in a neighborhood where over half of the adult residents have not graduated from high school.