The Valley Catholic
YOUTH & YOUNG ADULTS
7
October 8, 2013
California youth wins national award
for service, advocacy
Sruthi Ramaswami (fourth from right) with MAP students at the California State Capitol for
Catholic Youth Advocacy Day.
‘GOT LOVE?’ Conference to be held,
Oct. 12 in Menlo Park
Youth and young adults are invited
to a special event on the topic of chastity. Nativity Parish in Menlo Park is
hosting the second annual conference,
“Got Love? Love, Sex, & Relationships,”
Sat., Oct. 12, beginning with 9 am
Mass at Nativity Church, followed by
check-in at Sobrato Pavilion at Nativity School, where the conference will
begin.
Conference speakers include Charlie Aeschliman, former Navy SEAL, on
“Commando Catholicism” and Spiritual Warfare; Mary Bielski, founder of
ALL4HIM, on “The Truth about Love,
Sex and Relationships”; Matt Fradd,
from Catholic Answers, on “Dispelling Sexual Myths, Manhood and True
Freedom”; and Patricia Sandoval, from
Rachel’s Vineyard, on “Healing from
The Culture of Death.”
Bay Area-wide event, registration
$30, lunch included; conference ends
at 4:45 pm. For more details, http://
ww.gotlove.info; questions, contact
Deacon Dominick Peloso, 650-269-6279.
Sruthi Ramaswami, 18, of Los Altos,
has been named a national winner of
the 2013 Gloria Barron Prize for Young
Heroes. The prize celebrates 25 publicspirited young people from across
America who have made a significant
difference. The top 10 to 15 winners each
receive a $5,000 cash award to support
their service work or higher education.
Sruthi founded the Mitty Advocacy Project (MAP) to empower young
people to make a difference in their
communities through political advocacy. She created a legislative network of
over 1,000 students who represent social
justice issues and interface directly with
state and federal legislators.
Teams of students research issues
on poverty, education, immigration,
and criminal justice, and identify bills
designed to address these issues. Students lobby legislators in Sacramento,
and have traveled to Washington D.C.
to lobby at the national level.
Sruthi began her work as a high
school freshman at Archbishop Mitty
High School in San Jose, invited by a
teacher to participate in Catholic Lobby
Day, an advocacy event to lobby state
legislators.
Inspired by that experience, she
created MAP in her sophomore year to
form a community of youth lobbyists.
As the cornerstone of MAP, she founded
California Youth Advocacy Day, an annual event to promote civic engagement.
For the past three years, over 600
high school students have taken part in
the event, participating in issue-specific
workshops led by MAP students and
then lobbying their legislators at the
state capitol.
MAP has grown to involve 100
students at Sruthi’s school and has expanded to over 50 schools nationwide.
“I’ve learned that mobilizing people to
believe in and work toward a common
goal is not just for adults,” says Sruthi.
“Motivation and self-belief trump age.”
The Barron Prize was founded in
2001 by author T.A. Barron and was
named for his mother, Gloria Barron.
Barron Prize honorees are diverse, from
many races and backgrounds. Half
have focused on helping people in their
communities and half have focused on
protecting the environment.
“Nothing is more inspiring than
stories about heroic people who have
made a difference in the world,” said
Barron. “We need heroes today more
than ever. The purpose of the Gloria
Barron Prize is to focus on these amazing young people so their stories will
inspire others.”
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