Photos courtesy of Liz Hughes
Two years ago, Tricia Fellinger and Liz Hughes attended a district-wide staff training related to diversity equity and inclusion in Upper Arlington City Schools. Inspired by the call to make their community a more welcoming and connected place, they established a small yet motivated cohort of students who want to help make this change.
“Our emphasis is really on creating a community in our school where all our students feel valued,” Fellinger says. “We lay the foundations to help them understand that they may see some cases in school where not everyone feels valued and where that comes from.”
Aptly called Ambassadors of Change, Fellinger and Hughes have since seen the group grow from one cohort of 30 students that meets monthly, to three groups that meet weekly.
A main reason for their success is a strong focus on building trust among student participants, their advisors and the larger school community. Whether students faced prejudice, bullying or anxiety in the past, Ambassadors of Change has seen positive growth for members in even just one year of the program.
“We really want more students to find their voice,” Fellinger says. “A lot of the students we started with last year were students that wanted to make a change, but just didn’t know how to. They’ve now found their voice and become leaders in our school.”
Fellinger and Hughes serve as facilitators for the program, meaning they guide and equip the group while also focusing on empowering students to lead. In fact, they say that they’ve learned just as much from the students as the students have learned from them.
“One of our focuses is, ‘what’s your story?’” says Hughes. “In our second-year participants, we’ve seen so many courageous students initiate. We learn something new from them and are always taking away lessons from our sessions.”
Meetings start with icebreakers and community building activities. From there, students are led through group discussions, educational presentations, TED Talks and speakers.
“Before joining Ambassadors of Change, I would still reach out to others to help, but I found doing this difficult” - Sammy Bonasso
One student participant of Ambassadors of Change, Jhanavi Sivakumar, recalls how the program recently brought in two speakers from the West African country of Burkina Faso to share about their work regarding educational access for young girls.
“I truly thought their stories and what they were doing was very inspiring,” Sivakumar says.
She’s also seen Ambassadors of Change as a way not only to learn, but to respond. When she heard about the program initially, she was immediately excited.
“It seemed like a great way to be more knowledgeable about different issues and how to face them,” says Sivakumar. “I saw it as an outlet for students to bring about change, which appealed to me.”
The mission of Ambassadors of Change as both a tight-knit community and coalition of change-makers is particularly noticeable when speaking with another student participant, Sammy Bonasso.
“Before joining Ambassadors of Change, I would still reach out to others to help, but I found doing this difficult” Bonasso says. “Learning that an entire group desires to do the same has given me more courage and motivation.”
In September 2019, the program focused on learning about microaggressions and preparing for the Sandy Hook Promise, Start with Hello Week, which centers on bringing attention to growing social isolation in schools.
“We want students to come up with a lot of ideas and lead with what they’re passionate about,” says Hughes. “We also want to do more action for things we can take back out to the school so it’s not just our group. How can we engage the whole school?”
Maggie Ash is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com
