"Invisible" Homeless Population
Currently, this project is still in progress and something I'm working on right now. I began it because I wanted something new to do and had heard something mentioned about a homelessness problem throughout Douglas County (DC). To start my research, I came up with a few simple questions to help define the problem(s). Then began the real work. I found contact people within DC and interviewed them. It was honestly astounding to see how many issues there are. Through that though, I was able to fully understand and define the main problem(s) I wanted to focus on. That being said, I choose to narrow down to homeless teens. Narrowing it down to that helped my research and also allowed me to pick one set of problems to work on. The next step was to brainstorm ideas on how to help (Please click this link to see) and really, truly lay out a idea on how to solve a major problem. Which we want to present at a competition called Project Citizen in the upcoming months.
The link below takes you to the website my partner created to showcase our work:
Student Innovation Expo
With my partner, Zane Heimbach, we presented at the Student Innovation Expo over the summer. The expo invites kids from throughout Douglas County to present real life work they're doing. It's the work that goes beyond the typical tasks the kids in high schools are asked to do. Being in Mosaic gave us the perfect chance to show what we're doing and spread the word about our program while also exposing the major issues we have in Douglas County.
For our presentation, we we're required to make a poster board to describe our project and research (the pictures are below). Whenever someone came up to our booth, we got the chance to present to them and gain feedback on our work, presentation, or get new resources. I loved this process because everyone had different ideas on where to go next or knew people willing to help us on our journey. As we were talking, judges were walking around the room giving scores on the project and how well it was presented, as well as if we knew the answers to their questions. Because our project is based around homelessness, our judge has worked many jobs relating to education and those that are homeless. She gave us great tips and ideas on how to improve and we're hoping to work with her in the next coming months.
