We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cameron Samuels a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Cameron, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
When I was the only student who showed up to my school board meeting, in a district with over 90,000 students, I knew something needed to change. These decisions directly impacted students like me, but the decision-makers only had adults as a frame of reference. At a time when elected officials were banning books that represented the diversity of our community, they gave in to stereotypes and hypotheticals rooted in fear and bigotry. I knew that students, who were traditionally excluded from the conversation, deserved a seat at the table. We needed to share with policymakers a glimpse into our realities so we could debunk myths that have discredited an inclusive public education. Some have called us naive or unknowledgeable, but we are the experts of our lived experiences in school, and no one can tell us otherwise.
It’s a cruel time to be a student right now, especially in today’s Texas as lawmakers take away our rights. But I have a vision that our political leaders will one day serve students before their partisan agendas. This is encapsulated by the mission of the statewide movement of students that I co-founded and lead across Texas, known as SEAT, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. We have built strong relationships with policymakers, the press, funders, and organizational partners who believe in our mission to center and elevate student voice. We are authoring our moment in history when some seek to erase our diverse identities and ideas from mainstream narratives. Our fight is for our future.
If I wasn’t in the room that day at my school board, we wouldn’t be here with SEAT today. After I spoke alone, I returned to school board meetings with packed rooms defending LGBTQ+ youth and students of color. The students I work with on a daily basis, primarily in high school and college, inspire and energize me. They give me hope and proof that more people care about this than just me. We have each other in this fight, and we are not showing up alone. No policy change has ever happened when someone decides to wait for a seat at the table. Instead, we show up on the frontlines to demonstrate democracy.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
With nearly 300 student organizers from across Texas, SEAT has revolutionized the student advocacy landscape in Texas. SEAT organizers are speaking at school board meetings, testifying to lawmakers, writing op-eds, keynoting conferences, and filing legal action to defend students’ rights and inclusive education.
For years, we have brought students to our capitols, in both Austin and Washington, to demand a seat at the table. Our third annual SEAT Advocacy Day in April brought more than 300 students and community advocates to the Texas Capitol, and it’s wild to think that roughly half of these students had never been to their state capitol before. Countless decisions about our everyday lives and futures are made “under the dome” of our Capitol in Austin, but too many students have never been in proximity to shaping these decisions. SEAT breaks barriers for students to participate in democracy, whether by funding travel support, helping revise speeches, or connecting students with partnerships, press, policymakers, and peers for building skills, confidence, and power.
This year, SEAT is launching a fellowship for community engagement, prioritizing students from rural communities who are often underrepresented in state policymaking and may have fewer resources than urban and suburban students. Fellows from 25+ unique school districts and colleges will soon embark on capstone projects demonstrating the power we each have when we take the initiative to start a local movement for community transformation.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
In my journey from student to advocate, I have found that we need to think strategically with universal values, sustainable structures, and replicable responses. What we do in one community can teach lessons for others to learn. Past experiences tell us what works well and works better. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel when we are strapped on resources and capacity. It’s important for us to assess the values we hold and how they can help us match the needs of our communities. We must find the niche that we can bring to the table so we can fulfill unmet needs in our organizing ecosystem. As we engage with our communities, we must think boldly and use every moment we have to lay a foundation for the future. We must imagine visionary solutions for the future because otherwise these visions can never come true. Our task as organizers is to be a flashlight on this path to our imagined futures.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Funders need to partner and collaborate with youth-led movements. Period. There’s not enough dollars going into organic student-driven efforts where youth make budgetary decisions. We need to increase representation of students in the decision-making at all levels of government and in professional organizations, and we also need to fund and support the growth of student-driven solutions, from ideation to implementation and scaling. While SEAT blazes trails in policymaking and press, we seek to build reciprocal relationships with intergenerational partners who believe in our work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://studentsengaged.org
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/cameronjsamuels
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/cameronsamuels
Image Credits
CCR Studios
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
