Why a Day of Action Matters – Youth Activism Blog by Joey Maldonado

Hello, my name is Joey Maldonado and I am a Junior at Atrisco Heritage Academy High School. I have been a part of Evolvement for about 4 months now. I have not participated in ENMLT but I hope to in the near future. Evolvement has been a great experience and I plan to do it for the remaining of my high school years. Evolvement is a great organization that is engaged in bringing the community together and keeping the youth healthy.

The youth should participate in events like Virtual Day of Action to be informed about the State of New Mexico and many other important information. Virtual Day of Action really brings the people and community together. It helps the youth gain real world experience. It is important to have strong policies in place to keep the youth healthy, informed, and experienced. We need to stay on the right path of success. Everyone has their own path, but safety and healthiness is important. The good will always beat the bad. The dangers of tobacco consists of easy advertisement for these businesses. These businesses target specific audiences and are so persuasive because of the look and taste of it. The youth will use flavored tobacco products because of the color or it tastes good to them. We need the youth to be informed of the results of using flavored tobacco products. A flavor ban policy can result in less tobacco addicts, more informed youth, and less tobacco deaths. Talking with legislators felt amazing at the age I am at now. It felt like I was making an important change and I hope to do that again. I love being engaged with the community. Working with Evolvement taught me that policy is important because certain policies can affect different audiences. Policy is incredibly important for keeping the community safe, and young people like me informed. Other students can gain great social skills and information from just being involved in policy. People should support the policy changes Evolvement is trying to make to understand the dangers of tobacco and how we can make change together.

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