we honor the amazing accomplishments of 15 of the most lot inspiring and wonderful leaders of san francisco. i am the youth advocacy coordinator of the youth empowerment bond, part of the department of children and youth and their families. i have had a wonderful honor of working with the 50 warriors in the past five months. each warrior before you was nominated by a community-based organization and has dedicated their knowledge, skills, and talents to improving the lives of others living in san francisco. although all warriors are similar in their passion for community change, may differ greatly in their path to positive change. through making documentaries, political organizing, creative workshops, and even boxing, they have made beautiful contributions to others in need in their communities. the youth warriors are also

incredibly strong in character and heart. they have demonstrated incredible strength and courage for overcoming difficult life obstacles. throughout card chips that have overcome, they have stayed true to their commitment of self improvement and helping others. these remarkable youth leaders took part in a five-month fellowship at provided training on public speaking and city government. these workshops were led by you for your alumni. they facilitated the trainings and help to create the curriculum for the trainings. you if warriors then utilize their newly learned skills to lead you to advocacy day here in city hall on wednesday april 6, an historic day of youth civic engagement when high-school students met with their elected officials to talk about the issues they care about.

on youth advocacy day, you for years led interactive workshops with high school students and city government and also help students prepare for their meetings with elected officials. they met with officials from some various departments, members of the board of supervisors, and mayor edwin lee. mayor li was gracious enough to address all of the participants. he shared his history and inspiring words about the importance of youth in city politics. i am happy to share with you today that mayor lee is here to help celebrate youth warriors. [applause] throughout the fellowship, youth warriors also has the opportunity to meet other youth leaders throughout the city and share the wonderful work they are doing to run the city. this past thursday, the youth

warriors and a group of leaders went to sacramento to our state capital to meet with our elected officials to talk about the community work we are doing. the warriors had an opportunity to get involved in the political process and have their voices heard on the city and state level. the department of children, youth, and their families, is proud to be working with such wonderful and inspiring youth. now i would like to introduce the director of the department of children, youth, and their families. she has been an advocate of the use or your award and fellowship. please give her a werround of applause. [applause] >> thank you. i am so honored to be here. on behalf of our departments, citizens advisory committee, all of our staff, i want to congratulate all of our youth warriors for completing

disfellowship. i also wanted knowledge the staff who has worked tirelessly to make this all happen. our youth department coordinator, nadia, peter -- who am i missing? with all the work, we have been able to make this a successful program. the program could not have been this successful, had it not been for the other members and the audience right now, the parents, caregivers, the adult allies, the friends, the cousin, and we also want to say thank you for supporting our warriors in making this monumental time in their lives. it is an honor for me to be able to be here to express my appreciation for the accomplishments that every one of these warriors has achieved.

starting from helping pc y f -- dcyf informing our decisions, to helping us have a transparent and community-based project in the mission, to helping us advise the white house on what young people need in our country. i am sure each and everyone of you would agree it is such an inspiration to be in this room, in this space, with all of you, future leaders, and i definitely hope to see you one day in my position so that you can honor the next group of leaders. so i want to personally say congratulations to everyone. now i have the pleasure of introducing our wonderful mayor, mayor edwin lee, who will be giving us a few words. [applause] >> thank you.

welcome to city hall, your city hall. i wanted to make sure -- i know supervisor mirkarimi is here. supervisor jane kim is also here. they are both here because i know both have a strong commitment to our youth in san francisco. i want to welcome all of you here tonight for two reasons. one, i know we are going to give some awards out for our youth leaders, but the other reason i wanted to make sure you had a good invitation to come to city hall tonight was because we have been waiting for one of you to register, wondering if you are going to run for mayor or not. there is a vacant seat for youth to lead the city. i think you can take this job and run with it. this city needs to be more kid- friendly, more youth-oriented. i think you could have a big input to make sure that what

we are doing will be there for you to raise families as well. i want to congratulate all the nominees tonight. all of you who have been participating in this competition for the fellowship have been doing great work. i have been reading through some of the accomplishments that you are a part of. i got to meet some of you, luckily, last month when you participated in youth advocacy day, but you also followed up -- some of you were at the old school cafe with what house representatives about what the youths were looking at in terms of their future, participation in the city. here in city hall, we are serious about having programs that not only help you out, but to make sure you get the support you need to be successful.

we want you and need you to be successful. without that, we are literally a soulless city. whether it is being able to traverse on a good muni system, having a good education system, or being able to work in a company like twitter. i am working with two great supervisors and we are working with tech companies, to make sure if you wanted that job, you would be able to work for a company like them, who has their international headquarters right here in san francisco. did you know that if you kept focus on the educational background that you want and need, you can make it into the top jobs? besides the great money that they pay, the workers who want to be here -- want to be here in

this great city. they enjoy the culture, diversity, diversity of food, diversity of people that live here. you are all reflected of those diverse cultures. so we will do our best to make sure we are working with our school district, community college, with our san francisco state university, and with private donors, a program i called bridges to success, which we are working closely on with dcyf, school district, school board, to make sure that we not only encourage people to go to college, but when they begin in the experience, that we support you when you are there. that you go all the way to succeed in your degree. as i told you on youth advocacy day -- and i would tell you again to the parents. there is literally a $1 million difference in someone that does

not have that college degree and someone who does when they get their first job, and future jobs. i think in san francisco, it will be more than a million dollar difference because of the very good salaries that the private industry and public industry pay. if you have a college degree, you can get a good living. it will be expensive for you to have your own home here in the city as well. so with all of that, we want to embrace, and i want to thank the parents, siblings, family supporters here tonight, to share in the announcements of the youth warrior fellowship award east tonight. i want to thank everyone who has participated in this. the voice of the youth is important to people like me, supervisor mirkarimi, jane kim, to listen to what your all

about, and to follow your advice in many occasions as to what is necessary for us to do and continue doing to make sure this is a welcome city that is supportive of strong families and that we keep on doing the right thing here and not allowing rhetoric or politics to get in the way of being a safe city, a successful city, a city that knows how to come out of this economic challenge in a solid whey. we need your help to do that. i look forward to seeing you in city hall, not just in the rotunda, but when we have internship programs. by the way, when you go to college, make sure you applied to city hall and all of our 60 departments. you can get an internship at the public utilities commission, health department, department of the environment. there are a host of departments

that offer internship programs. while you are of studying in college, in the summertime, even during the year, you can be an intern and learn even more about how the government works. then you can think about a career, whether in the public or private sector, there will be good choices in front of you if you are focused. now we can start with identifying all of you won this year's fellowship award. you are on your way to very good foundation. [applause] >> thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and for being our onerous speaker. thank you again. -- honoree speaker. [applause] i now have the pleasure of presenting our youth warrior a

warrants. i will read each individual's bio. we have a special treat today because mayor edwin lee will be handing out the awards. we also have supervisor mirkarimi and kim who will be helping to hand out the awards and flowers to the warriors. now i would like everyone to stand up and line up over here. as i call your name, please come on up. [applause] first, we have carlos hernandez, 16. he is a positive influence to those in his community who looked up to him and follow his

steps towards success and greatness. [applause] if we could keep it to just a few photos, that would be great. next, we have -- a film maker of a media crew where she treats me that spreads awareness about important issues and encourages you to make change. she created a film around the oscar grant story and documented youth reaction to the case. [applause] sh andcheyyenne carson is improg

conditions of youth who have parents and custody. [applause] denise castro, 17, is a college- bound ambassador at marshall elementary school where she helps students with their homework and students with after-school activities. she is an inspiring member to the students she works with. she is also a captain of her high school soccer team. [applause]

efrian hernandez, 16, takes part in the youth development boxing club where he helps his peers build confidence and discipline. he is often seen encouraging others to push themselves harder and not give up, proving to be and our role model. [applause] [applause] evira ziayz, 18, a career

counselor with lyric and has worked hard to build partnerships. she motivates other young people to be their best while demonstrating respectful and responsible leadership wherever she is. [applause] [applause] gerald is at inner-city youth where he incurred as other people to be leaders. gerald is also praised for his perseverance and compassionate

speaking out against violence. he recently completed the program at city college where he focused on green technology and will soon transferred to louisiana state university. he will be missed. [applause] [applause] lauren dangerfield, 16, has led the forefront of campaigns for people winning in time of rights. -- employment rights. she also institutionalized ethnic studies. she is working to build more awareness on working to bridge the gap between ecology, race, and community.

[applause] [applause] lucky fisher travis, 17, is a youth supervisor with new ideas. he strives for greatness and also pushes and support this project leaders to envision britain is in themselves. -- greatness in themselves. [applause] [applause]

michellechu, 17, is a committed youth board member and on the youth empowerment advisory board. she is a college-bound ambassador in march from mentor school, where she is a wonderful model tutor. michelle is a responsible and motivated later working to bring you up voice to her community. [applause] nataliegranados, 18, has been a leader in the grenada movement where she had been in the budget crisis and have bravely spoken at the bourse supervisors. she has advocated for sense of participation and funding to be restored to our city's quality youth programs. [applause]

[applause] roblin bonner, 18, is an outspoken member of the youth leadership. roblin graduated from downtown high where she was a passionate role model and advocated for youth to be more engaged in the political process. [applause] [applause] -- 17, pawlenty first single

occupancy sro in the chinatown development center. he also wrote a grant proposal to create a bilingual fire safety and emergency preparedness curriculum along with emergency kits for each participating sro unit. [applause] [applause] valerie clinker is a voice of community change in front and behind the camera. she was a guest youth analyst at the third anniversary women's

pioneer awards ceremony and presented gina davis with the woman pioneer award. she was also named valedictorian of the changing program. [applause] last but not least, a nasalee, 18, spearheaded the 16th street bart installation about gender which infused her passion for art and activism. an asset is a second year career educator at the arid and engaging facilitator of the group trend magic rashid is committed to becoming a visible and zero allied to the transgender community.

[applause] [applause] >> thank you, supervisor mirkarimi, kim, mayor. once again, we are all here to honor and the phenomenal accomplishments of these 15 new four years. it has been a blessing and give to work with these wonderful warriors. thank you all for sharing this memorable day with us in honoring the 2011 youth warriors. these 15 are shining examples of what it means to be a warrior and is a gift to myself, the

family, friends, nominators, and importantly, to the city and county of san francisco. we all appreciate everything you have done. thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. [applause] the youth empowerment fund would love if you joined us for refreshments. please take some time to meet with the warriors and we also have photographs. thank you in helping us celebrate the 2011 you for your awards and ceremony.

>> every position he has held in san francisco, he has been inclusive, he cuts across class and economics. he believes in people and human rights. he is one of the greatest guys i know, and i am so happy that he is our mayor. i bring to you mayor edwin lee. [applause] >> good afternoon. welcome. thank you very much for the introduction. i have a lot to be happy about this day because it is the 100th anniversary celebrating international women's day,