Istvan
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Team Ohio took to the hill yesterday and it was R.A.D. As Ohio Advocates, we talked to staff of Sherrod Brown and Deborah Pryce about the importance of comprehensive sex/sexuality education and the importance of denying funding of abstinence-only until marriage education.
The experience was incredibly empowering. After training for the entire weekend, doing research, coming up with a plan and educating ourselves on the issues, I really felt that we came off confident and informed – because that’s exactly what we were. I’m going to have to shout out to Team Awesome, which was my smaller group of Ohioans that took on the staff and the views of Deborah Pryce. JAC, Caryl- you were there for all the policy talk that I just don’t have the background for. You were clearly informed on what was on the table, but more importantly you were constantly reinforcing our arguments through the funding facts. John V- You provided very important statistics about Ohio’s populations- it seems that those stats were the most powerful and shocking for the staff, and something that they might share. As for me, I’m going to pat myself on the back because I feel for the first time in a long time that my personal story may be put to use in helping other youth.
So, the staffer that spoke to the entire Ohio Advocates group on behalf of Sherrod Brown was a total sweetheart. She and the Senator agree with us on almost every aspect of the issue of comprehensive sex education. Team Ohio worked very fluidly in the session, and I felt that most of the group got to share either great info or great personal stories. It was super.
Then, Team Ohio got split up into smaller groups to lobby house reps. Team Awesome (JAC, Caryl, John, and I) got to speak with a staffer of Deborah Pryce. He was surprisingly very open to our concerns. I feel that at the beginning of the session he was surprised and confused that we wanted to talk to him because Deborah was not re-elected. We talked about policy, and he was receptive, but reserved. We told personal stories, and while I think that Deborah may not get our information or hear our message, I think that her staffer will remember us and our stories. I think the next time Comprehensive sex education comes up as an issue, he will be thinking about Team Awesome and what’s at stake. Also, Brian, the Advocates staff member did an awesome job of facilitating our talk with Deborah’s staffer and kept our energy up with his de-briefings.
To the rest of Team Ohio, we need to get your stories up here. I can’t wait to lobby in Columbus with all of you!
AFY_Joe
| 11/11/08 03:14 PM
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