Georgetown students in Social Entrepreneurship: Leading Social Change, a sociology course headed by Professor Stiles, partnered with community-based organizations. The community-based learning experience allows students to work as partners in non-profit organizations, such as YMCA DC Youth & Government, and to continue to revolutionize our obsolete concepts of charity and social justice.

On February 27th and 28th, YMCA DC Youth & Government held its 7th Annual Legislative Weekend, a culmination of the high students training in policy making where they drafted, presented, debated, and passed bills, at Judiciary Square. At this pinnacle event, over 100 hundred high school students in the DC Public School and Charter School Systems did a dress rehearsal for their future potential participation in the political and legislative process.
With the active support of DCPS and charter school teachers, volunteers, City Council Member Harry Thomas, Jr., and former Council Member Kevin P. Chavous, “This program empowers our youth to become leaders and responsible citizens while teaching them the principles of democracy,” Mayor Adrian M. Fenty lauds in his note to the students. The progress and sustainability of this program is not possible without the support of the program’s Director, Sarah Stiles, an adjunct professor in the sociology department and a humble social entrepreneur, who has and continues to instill values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility in her students in this program, her class, and those around her. As a result of our collaboration and promotion of civic engagement at Legislative Weekend, all the DC Youth & Government staff members and volunteers, including faculty advisors and college students from Georgetown University, American University, and George Washington University, were able to galvanize a sense of citizenship within our students to be engaged in social change.



DC Youth & Government continued to share its passion of service to youth in Washington by participating in Global Youth Service Day, a world wide day of service that celebrates and mobilizes youth commitment to social justice, awareness, and responsibility.