Members of the Center for Youth Leadership (CYL) at Brien McMahon High in Norwalk lead activities during the school year about teen dating violence, but they ramp things up in February, which is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. Highlights include a press conference; its Boots and Leggings Project; and a schoolwide activity for Valentine’s Day.

The CYL kicked things off the first week of the month with its world famous cell phone mascot (photo: Keara Meyerson in white and Emma Curtin in the costume). The project was the perfect lead-in to its trek to Hartford on February 11th to testify in support of HB 5029: An Act Concerning Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence on Campus. Testimony was be delivered before the General Assembly’s Committee on Higher Education and Employment Advancement. Click here for a video clip of members of the Center for Youth Leadership about their testimony.

Social change is a key component of CYL’s activism. Testifying in Hartford, Norwalk and elsewhere is one of several tools the CYL uses to influence laws and policies.
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The Center for Youth Leadership is the largest youth activism organization in Fairfield County, and one of the largest in Connecticut. Our mission is to promote social change. The Center for Youth Leadership, which is based at Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk, was established in 1999 when six students asked for help in examining the connection between academic achievement and where students live in Norwalk. These and other initiatives led members of the Center for Youth Leadership to create a model of youth activism that they call socially engaged philanthropy.

The Center for Youth Leadership, which has grown to 220 members, is the recipient of the Governor’s Educational Citizenship Award; the Night of the Child Award from Prevent Child Abuse Connecticut; the Volunteer Service Award from the United Way of Coastal Fairfield County; and the First for Kids Award from Connecticut Voices for Children.

For more information, visit http://www.gocyl.org/.