Stevenson students educate young citizens to be representatives

Adlai E. Stevenson High School seniors Prachi Gyanmote and Anna Xie (co-presidents) and juniors Lindsey Wang and Natalie Garayeva (co-vice presidents) founded an organization called "Citizen 2 Representative," also known as C2R, dedicated to providing students from various backgrounds the opportunity to become well-informed individuals.

In June of 2020, the co-presidents founded an ongoing debate program at Fenghua Chinese school, based in Lake Zurich, where they led a 12-week program for more than 25 students ages 9-14 across multiple states.

This virtual program included speaking activities for students to meet others while learning about speech and debate. At the end of the program, students were able to apply the skills they learned and participate in a mock tournament.

"These classes offered me so much to learn. Unlike most programs, the program was interactive and peers got to communicate with each other," one of their first students said.

Meanwhile, the co-vice presidents of C2R initiated another virtual program, providing a summer camp open to students in second to ninth grade at XiLin North Education Center based in Deerfield.

The camp strives to teach foundational speech and debate skills, while exposing students to current global issues. They both hope that students can build confidence in public speaking and feel comfortable expressing their sentiments.

With the same goal of turning daily citizens into well-informed representatives with a broader awareness of the world, the two speech and debate programs came together in collaboration to form the organization.

Today, C2R has expanded to include more students in the Lake Forest region, and has plans to spread their mission to an international level.

To refer to materials presented in class, get involved with volunteer opportunities, register for classes, or join C2R, visit bit.ly/Citizen2Representative.