The Aspen Institute

For the second year, Dallas Independent School District students are taking charge as leaders and changemakers. At Fair Park’s Briscoe Center, over 150 high schoolers came together to hear challenges to issues impacting their local and national community from cross-sector leaders at the Aspen Challenge: Dallas Opening Forum. “I want to make a difference in the world,” says South Oak Cliff High School sophomore T’Arron Cooper, and he sees the Aspen Challenge as a too-rare opportunity that young people are given the chance to do just that.

Each year, the Aspen Challenge provides inspiration, tools, and a platform for young people to design solutions to address critical issues. Dallas students will be taking on issues as far-ranging and timely as immigration, physical and mental health, civil discourse, and the environment. They heard from inspirational speakers like Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, Aspen Institute President and CEO Dan Porterfield, Citizen University Founder and CEO Eric Liu, and Big Thoughts CEO Byron Sanders. Now, it’s their turn.

Teams of eight students and two educator coaches will now have eight weeks to design solutions to their chosen challenge and present them to a panel of judges and peers for a chance to bring their ideas to the Aspen Ideas Festival stage this summer.

Check out the challenges issued at the Aspen Challenge: Dallas Opening Forum below and at aspenchallenge.org/dallas-2019

 

I challenge you to design a program that creates support for immigrants in your community, one that moves beyond fear and tolerance to an authentic state of welcoming.

I challenge you to develop a solution to reduce a health inequity facing your community, using your community’s assets and identifying where more support is needed.

I challenge you to organize young people in your community to practice civic power and cultivate civic character.

We challenge you to restore and protect green spaces in Dallas so that more community members will receive the benefits of being in a natural environment, while improving Dallas’s ability to support wildlife and biodiversity.

I challenge you to examine the concept of belonging as it pertains to mental health in your community, and create a program that not only supports the isolated, but also lays the groundwork for sustaining a culture of inclusiveness.