Teen spends summer pushing for change
While most children were sitting back relaxing and enjoying their summer vacation, Lodi native and Middle College High School Junior Isaac Sison was making his voice heard at the state capital.
This summer Sison took part in The Organizing and Leadership Academy (TOLA), a program geared towards youths interested in pursuing community organizing as a career. During the course of the program, Sison and other participants worked to engage the community and push for a local soda tax.
In the beginning of the program, Sison was able talk with community members and business owners to get their opinion on diabetes and collect data. He and other participants in the program asked community members how many times they drunk soda a day and if anyone in their family had diabetes.
“We would catalog it so we would know how many people were affected by diabetes, so we could better present it to people and make more people aware that soda is leading cause of diabetes,” Sison said.
Sison and the other participants also spoke at city council meetings as well.
Half way through their efforts, Sison and the others got the disappointing news that the state passed a local soda tax ban which prohibited passing a local soda tax until 2031.
After finding out about the local soda tax ban, Sison and the other participants went to the state capital to speak with assembly members on the issue.
“I was a little bit nervous and a lot of us were actually because we’re so used to talking to people everyday but when we went to Sacramento everything that we say could possibly change their mind, so just the idea of it was very scary,” Sison said.
Following the meeting with assembly members, Sison and the other participants began preparing for Diabetes Awareness Day.
“We ended up having a really
“At first, I actually started talking negatively about it. I didn’t know if what I had to say would have an impact, but after I went to city meetings and I was talking to people, I realized that my voice mattered,” ISAAC SISON, TOOK PART IN THE ORGANIZING AND LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
nice vigil and having people talk about diabetes. We had dentists and doctors and even some people who had the disease just so people could see how its affecting people and how bad the disease is,” Sison
For Sison participating in the TOLA Academy helped him to enhance his public speaking, organization and leadership skills. In the beginning of the program he was afraid to approach people, but by the end, he became a pro at it. Sison also learned that there was a lot of preparation involved with engaging the community and pushing for change. Participating in the program helped Sison to realize that his voice mattered.
“At first, I actually started talking negatively about it. I didn’t know if what I had to say would have an impact, but after I went to city meetings and I was talking to people, I realized that my voice mattered,” he said. “My voice really influenced the situation and a lot of ours did because if it was just one person coming to these meetings saying something they probably wouldn’t care. However when you get more people involved and have them tell their stories every voice becomes powerful. Every voice pushes for that change.”
Sison is looking forward to participating in similar programs and continuing to be involved in the community in the future.