Youth Council Members Serve as Advisors on Project Unloaded’s Cultural Campaigns and Teen Outreach Programs to Spread the Message that Guns Make Us Less Safe
CHICAGO – Today Project Unloaded, an organization working to reduce gun violence through culture and narrative change campaigns, announced its 2023-2024 Youth Council. Following an annual selection process, fourteen high school and college students were selected to serve a year-long term to support Project Unloaded’s work to debunk the myth that guns make us safer.
“Project Unloaded’s Youth Council is an essential part of our work to rewrite the narrative on guns,” said Nina Vinik, founder and executive director of Project Unloaded. “As history has proven time and again, there’s no stopping a determined group of young people. We’re excited to see what this new group of leaders will do to take on gun culture and help turn the tide on this epidemic.”
Members of the youth council are responsible for weighing in on Project Unloaded’s large-scale social media campaigns, such as its signature SNUG (Safer Not Using Guns) campaign, developing social media content and strategy and supporting new and existing community partner programs. Members of the first council also spoke at film screenings and to the media about their work to empower their peers to decide against using guns. The first council met in Houston for a weekend of planning and organizing in January 2023. Members of the 2023-2024 Youth Council will gather in Chicago for a similar meeting in November.
“Our generation has grown up practicing dying in our classrooms, checking for exits at the movies and worrying about who will be the next victims of our country’s gun violence crisis,” said Paige Carter and Lillian Lee-Sin, co-chairs of the 2023-2024 Project Unloaded Youth Council. “We know it doesn’t have to be this way. By reaching our peers with the facts about why guns make us less safe, we can help young people make the choice not to use guns. And that will save lives.”
2023-2024 Council Members:
- Esha Ambre, Fremont, CA, 16
- Madhurum Bhuvan, Fremont, CA, 17
- Paige Carter, West Lafayette, IN, 20
- Stephanie Diaz, Highland Park, IL, 17
- Reyansh Gangal, Fremont, CA, 15
- Anvesha Guru, Brookfield, WI, 16
- Emma Hackbarth, New York, NY, 17
- Zoe Kaufman, Providence, RI, 18
- Lillian Lee-Sin, Evans, GA, 16
- Sarsha O’Connor, LaGrange Park, IL, 16
- Shiven Patel, Fremont, CA, 16
- Karly Scholz, Charlottesville, VA, 20
- Laya Venkatasubramanian, Normal, IL, 16
- Edgar Vilchez, Chicago, IL, 18
To learn more about members of the youth council and Project Unloaded, please visit www.projectunloaded.org/youth-council.
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