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Parents, Educators/Teachers & Students in Action

April 9, 2021
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER
Youth is no hurdle to PESA’s hard-working young intern
Beginning a new job can be challenging. The people you work with are strangers. The place is unfamiliar. The projects may initially seem daunting. Neti Sonavene, an intern with PESA, harbored each of these reservations along with an added challenge: At 15, she is one of the nonprofit’s youngest interns.

Through her positive experiences as a juror with Teen Court, and at the urging of Michelle Fortune, a student advisor with PESA, Sonavene applied for and was accepted to the internship with PESA in January despite being in the tenth grade at Narbonne High School. “I didn’t know there would be college students in the PESA internship,” says Sonavene. “I thought, okay, this is a challenge…but let’s give it a try.” Despite being anxious at the start of her internship, Sonavene says, “The atmosphere that PESA creates for the students makes you feel like your voice matters.” 

Given that Sonavene is under the age of 18, she cannot yet perform every task that her college peers are assigned, but her work has been just as impactful. As a minor, Sonavene does not manage diverted-youth cases, for example, but instead uses her own youthfulness to a different advantage. "I get to talk with the client’s family members… about the impact the client has had on them,” and vice-versa. She finds that in this situation her age improves the efficacy of her work given that teenagers tend to be less comfortable speaking with adults.
Sonavene has also been able to bring what she has learned during her internship back to her classmates. For example, interns were tasked with presenting PESA’s County of Heroes program, which educates youth about the harms of bias and stereotyping through hypothetical scenarios, to a group of at least 10 people. Sonavane presented to her English and Speech class. “Even though I have never been in a [discriminatory] situation,” she says, “right now we have a lot of anti-Asian discrimination going on… and it’s really important that people understand the harm of it.”

Sonavene’s presentation proved to be both effective and enlightening, with many students opening up about their own experiences with stereotyping. One student expertly dissected the bias in a scenario of a Korean woman being stereotyped as having Covid-19 simply because of her race. “People think just because she's Asian that she has the virus,” the student said, “which is mean and racist for assuming something that is not true.”

Another student bravely shared her own story of discrimination. “I have been in a situation where people told me to go back to Mexico or they would call ICE on me just because I am Mexican,” she said. The students also brainstormed ways in which they could personally confront these issues in their own lives. One student emphasized the fact that many times people act as bystanders to discrimination and marginalization, and that one way to combat the issue would be to "try to get out of your comfort zone and talk to people you may not know, such as classmates you don't normally talk to.” 

Aside from raising awareness about bias and discrimination, Sonavene’s presentation may have inspired other high schoolers to participate in the internship program. “People were curious about PESA,” says Sonavene, and students contacted me after the presentation to learn more.” 

Who knows? Maybe young Sonavene will soon be among PESA's “old guard.” ■
If you’d like more information or to support PESA’s many social and educational initiatives, please contact us.