Sofia Sasson--Elections Matter Event

Once the first project was completed in our Public Speaking class, we moved onto our second big project. Our class was going to prepare and host an Elections Matter event for citizens’ rights and responsibilities for this year’s upcoming and future elections. This event was a part of our service-learning project, so it consisted of us inviting guests and sharing our research and thoughts with a group of college students and colleagues remotely. Professor Sinkoff helped us organize and gather research for each of our subtopics.  We were also working alongside a psychology class and their professor Dr. Molina at Miami Dade College. They provided us with additional research about the psychological aspect to add to our presentation so we would be better equipped when speaking about certain topics. This “Citizen rights and responsibilities” project was designed by our class to share our research and thoughts about the assigned topic we got. We were striving to encourage the guests attending our event to become more involved in their community. In reality not many students or young adults in general know how much of a difference or impact they have when it comes to voting. Some may think they don’t have a voice or a chance to make a change at all. We wanted to educate these future leaders and be the ones to influence them to be a part of the movement.

Our group was covering the subtopic of civic engagement of college students and their rights and responsibilities for the election and why it matters. All groups had to create and construct a 7-minute visual video presentation to make it more professional and to stay within the time frame of the event.  In the presentation we had to also include their self-esteem, families, and communities. Since our class was working with Dr Molina’s psychology class, we used some of their research to explain more in depth the psychological aspects of elections in regard to college students. This helped with our speeches as well, since we wanted to make the audience feel comfortable while also encouraging and motivating them to be a part of the election. 

Since we wanted the students to become more involved, I wanted to speak about this voting organization called “Engage Miami”. I decided to talk about this organization because I felt it was a very good and useful resource for college students especially. They go around different Miami Dade county campuses and help students register to vote. Most college students don’t know how to register, and Engage Miami strives to help and educate young adults on voting.  For every student that they register, more than 90 percent of them reliably turn out for every single election. I can confirm that because they actually registered me, and I’ve been voting at every single election ever since. They really showed me the importance of my voice and I knew I had to share that experience in this event. 

    The two other groups in the class did just as an amazing job as we did. Each of their presentations were really informative and gave us a lot to think about. Group 2 talked about civic engagement within school age children and their rights and responsibilities for the election. And Group 3 combined two sub-topics together and talked about civic engagement for teachers and students, along with underserved communities of color and minorities, and their rights and responsibilities for the election. With such great subtopics, both groups were able to expand on each one of them very clearly and the audience was really engaged. Our class leaders did a great job as well with hosting this great event and making sure everything went smoothly. 

Getting to be a part of such a big and inspiring event made me feel like I was serving my community in the right way. My group and I prepared such an informative and uplifting presentation. And I have no doubt that anyone who attended the presentation didn’t get something out of it. The purpose of this event was to show to everyone that they have the ability to be heard and that our generation is the future. We are the ones that have to use our voices to make a change.