LWVDC members Rebecca Mears and Karan Raina joined a presentation on February 6, 2025, to 400 high school students from across the nation, gathered in Washington, DC, for a Close Up Student Civic Leadership Summit. LWVDC has presented on DC statehood for Close Up student groups in the past.
Karan and Rebecca were part of an expert panel on youth civic engagement to inform and inspire students as they came together to develop vision statements around this question, "What does political and civic engagement look like in your community?" and formed questions around this topic as they considered their agency and individual and collective responsibilities, identified best practices in community engagement, and developed vision statements and strategies to make a difference in their own communities. They then had the opportunity to get their questions answered by a panel of experts that included Karan and Rebecca.
Karan is a LWVDC member and undergraduate student at George Washington University. He has done youth engagement presentations in DC high schools for us before and has League experience from the Bay Area, his family home. Rebecca is a dedicated League volunteer who engaged young people in voting at last year’s WNBA Mystics games. By day, she is a democracy expert with a national organization.
Rebecca and Karan report they had a great time talking about youth civic engagement and the League at Close Up’s Summit and are eager to do more. Rebecca shared,
I want to especially commend Karan who was the true breakout star of today’s panel with his enthusiasm and strong personal connection to youth civic engagement. The students absolutely loved hearing from him!!
We were able to encourage the students to get more civically engaged and inform them about why the League is one great way to get engaged. We even had time to briefly discuss DC statehood and Vote411. Several students came up to us afterward to ask about connecting with their local League, and we were able to direct them to the website to connect with their local chapter; in case they had other questions we gave them our contact information.
At the end the organizers asked if we’d be interested in coming back to do a panel on DC statehood, and of course we enthusiastically agreed! So hopefully they reach out at some point to set that up.
All in all, this was a fantastic opportunity, Karan is amazing, and fingers crossed we inspired some students to get involved with their local League.
Karan reported, “The event was seriously fantastic. Rebecca and the entire panel did an amazing job of keeping the kids engaged and giving really insightful answers that even I learned a lot from. This was an excellent opportunity to get youth excited about the League and civic engagement in general. We should certainly attend more events like this in the future. I'm looking forward to what comes next.”
Thanks, Karan and Rebecca!
