Jennifer Hatchett of YouthServe Talks Youth Empowerment and Radio
Jennifer Hatchett is the Executive Director of YouthServe, a group that empowers youth leadership through community service. The students worked with WBHM this summer to produce their own radio stories. She talked with WBHM’s Gina Yu about the program.
Hatchett says YouthServe promotes a continuum of youth engagement where all kinds of different opportunities are available. Hatchett explains that students in the program learn about youth leadership and civic engagement. They then take the topics out of their discussions and adapt them into a community service component. Past projects included hosting educational talks about drug and alcohol abuse in different schools.
Youth and Radio
YouthServe recently included a radio storytelling component into their program and asked WBHM to help. “I think when you give a voice to young people, they bring energy and vitality to it,” Hatchett says. “Because they know that this is their future.”
One recent group of students decided to focus on homelessness. They visited a feeding service and interviewed various people there. “They began to understand the systemic barriers of people who are experiencing homelessness,” she says. “They learn a lot about things they see. Youth are so passionate. They’re going, ‘You know, this isn’t fair. This is crazy’.”
Hatchett wants to encourage her students to take their experiences and discoveries and share them with their communities.
Opportunities for Positive Growth
“If we give youth, the opportunity to positively develop, then they will positively develop,” she says. Programs like YouthServe exist to meet students where they are. The focus is to celebrate their passion and compassion. “They’re sensitive to things happening in their community,” Hatchett says. “With all the noise out there in the world, so often, they just feel so small, like there’s nothing they can do about it.”
Youthserve hopes to be one of many programs that offer opportunities for students to make positive choices and meaningful impacts on their communities.
Hear one of the Youthserve radio stories here:
United Nations nuclear agency again condemns Iran for failing to fully cooperate
The resolution comes after the agency said Iran has defied demands to rein in its nuclear program and has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
Alabama carries out nation’s 3rd nitrogen gas execution
An Alabama man convicted in the 1994 killing of a hitchhiker cursed at the prison warden shortly before he was put to death Thursday evening in the nation's third execution using nitrogen gas.
Trump names former Florida AG Pam Bondi as his new pick for U.S. attorney general
After former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration, President-elect Donald Trump named Pam Bondi, a former attorney general of Florida, as his next pick for U.S. attorney general.
Police report gives details, timeline of the sexual assault claim against Pete Hegseth
The woman who accused then-Fox News host of sexual assault in 2017 said that she "remembered saying 'no' a lot," according to a police report. Hegseth is President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Secretary of Defense.
Alabama Black Belt’s sewer crisis a tougher fix for residents in manufactured homes
Poor sanitation has long plagued residents in Alabama’s Black Belt. For people with manufactured houses, finding a solution has been more challenging.
In Birmingham, Black men’s groups work to save young men from the cycle of gun violence
As the city inches closer to its homicide record, community members are trying to address a sense of fatalism and lack of opportunity felt by some young men.
