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| MAYOR'S YOUTH COUNCIL |
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Mayor's Youth Council Members
 Bini Abune
Binyam Abune attends Shorewood high school and lives in the Lake city area. He has spent time volunteering for the Obama campaign. He is currently a youth leader for Ethio Youth Media (ETM), a non-profit organization where the Ethiopian youth community are taught about their heritage through art, video production and interviews.
He has been in the United States for nearly 6 months now. This transition has been difficult but also rewarding. He is most concerned about and what he has become most passionate about is the increase of gang violence in Washington state.
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 Genieva Arunga
Geneiva Arunga is nineteen years young. Geneiva is a home schooled scholar and attends Seattle central in connection with the Running Start program. As a youth activist, Geneiva is involved with a number of organizations within the Seattle area including: African Youth United, Umojafest Peace Center, Hip Hop Youth Council and the Hip-hop Think Tank, Mayors Youth Council. She has recently participated in the Application Review Team for the Neighborhood Matching Fund, representing the youth voice on projects related to the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative. Additionally, Geneiva was invited by the Seattle Channel's 'Art Zone' to represent the youth perspective on the youth arts scene in Seattle. She is a debate coach, an international poet, spoken word artist, a project manager, and an idea generator and spokesperson for the Seattle youth organizing community. Her passion for 'Youth Voice' has lent her numerous invitations to emcee a broad spectrum of Seattle youth led and developed events, most of which she has graciously accepted. |
 Lily Clifton
Lily Clifton is currently a senior at Nathan Hale High School. Along with being a part of the Mayor’s Youth Council, Lily is the leader of her high school Diversity Club and President of the Horticulture Club. In the fall of 2009, Lily hopes to pursue a degree in Environmental Studies or Political Science. Currently her favorite subjects include AP Environmental Science and American Government. Within the three years that Lily has served on the Mayor’s Youth Council, she has enjoyed working with her peers and making a difference in the youth community. Lily is most passionate about working on Climate Change and advocating for persons with disabilities. |
 Zabia Colovos
Zabia Colovos is a junior at Lakeside School and lives in Fremont. She joined the mayor’s youth council this year because she wanted the opportunity to help the mayor address issues that youth in the Seattle area have to deal with; specifically education, gang violence, and hate/brutality based on gender identity. This last summer, Zabia traveled to Peru where she stayed for a month with a host family in a small village and worked on an environmental project. The project consisted of building recycling, garbage, and compost bins in a local public school as well as teaching the students the importance of our efforts aimed at staying green. Since then she’s enjoyed volunteering at El Centro de la Raza (playing with and serving food to the elderly) and taking her gender studies elective. In her free time she loves being athletic, listening to and making music, writing, spending time with friends, and having meaningful debates or conversations with people she knows as well as strangers.
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 Laura D'Asaro
Laura D'Asaro is a sophomore at Nathan Hale High school and is no stranger to volunteering. Laura applied for and won a $500 GameStop youth grant and spent the summer selling lemonade and cookies next to the Burke-Gilman trail, ultimately raising $13,000 for new play equipment at Matthews Beach Park. Her venture was noticed by three local TV stations, a radio station an both the Seattle Times and PI. She is active in Diversity club, Earth Corps, ICO club, and FCCLA, as well as volunteering with John Rogers Elementary School's horse camp and doing gymnastics. |
 Sophie Degroot
Sophie DeGroot is a freshman at Holy Names Academy. She is representing the Wallingford/Fremont area. She loves listening to music, reading, writing, playing guitar and being with friends. Her activities include the rowing team at HNA, and writing for the school paper which is good because her long term goal is to be a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, before becoming its editor-in-chief. In 2006 she blogged for the Seattle Times about her experience being one of seven American kids to meet J.K. Rowling in London and hear her read the first chapter of Harry Potter and theDeathly Hallows.
She is currently blogging for Puget Sound Off, a web site for Northwest youth to express ideas about anything and everything. Last summer she was a counselor at the Seattle Children’s Peace Camp, and spent a week working in a Costa Rican village. Some of her most loved movies are Duck Soup, Love Story, Pretty in Pink, and Religulous. Favorite books include The King in the Window, The Tin Flute, and Goose Girl. |
 Loey May Engel
Loey May Engel lives in Ballard and is a junior at Ballard High School. She is involved in the Model UN club, the Biotech Academy and the Academy of Finance (AOF). Loey is a SASL (Seattle Academy Student Leaders) representative for her AOF class and is also the Secretary for SASL. The issue that she feels most passionate about is homelessness and the surrounding issues of depression, addiction and lack of government funded social services for those in need. |
 Winson Law
Winson Law attends University Prep and represents the northeast neighborhood district. He has volunteers at the Life Long AIDS Alliance, tutors students at B. F. Day elementary school through his school’s National Honor Society. He hopes to begin volunteering at the Northwest Film Forum and the Pacific Science Center in the near future. Winson is also one of Seattle’s Rainier Scholars. He participates in Key Club, Multicultural Student Alliance, Random Acts of Kindness Club, and Umbrella Club (affinity group for people of color). He also runs cross country and plays on the ultimate Frisbee team for his school. He is extremely passionate about public health. Not health care, but public health. He recognizes the many inequalities among the accessibility of good healthcare in the world, and but even more so within the communities of Seattle. He would like to see all people in Seattle lead healthy lives, independent of wealth, ethnicity, sex, where they live, and their sexual orientation. This is an issue that greatly affects the lives of many people not only in Seattle, but throughout the world. |
 Lydia Lippold-Gelb
Lydia Lippold-Gelb is a junior at Nathan Hale High School, and is representing the Wedgwood neighborhood. Lydia has created two clubs at Nathan Hale: the Bowling Club, and the Students for Barack Obama club. She has worked for the past 3 years at the Experimental Education Unit Summer Camp with developmentally delayed children. Lydia also volunteers as a tutor once a week at the North Seattle Family Center. One issue that she is very passionate about is ending homelessness in Seattle. She wants to see more low income housing in Seattle, so that everyone can have a place to live. |
 Max Miner
Max Miner lives in southern Ballard and is currently a junior at Ballard high school, where he is in the model UN club and the Biotech Academy. He has also put in over 100 hours volunteering for the Washington Trails Association. The one issue that most captures his interest is domestic violence and child abuse. This is Max’s first year serving with the Mayor’s Youth Council. |
 Tiffany Oh
Tiffany Oh is a senior at Roosevelt High School and represents the Greenwood Neighborhood. She is the vice president of her school's National Honor Society and Junior Classical League. She also plays piano in her school's orchestra, is a basketball scorer at Green Lake Community Center, and volunteers at her local library and her church's Sunday school. She is most passionate about pedestrian and bicyclist safety and plans to major in city planning. |
 Lucas Smith
Lucas Smith is a sophomore at Garfield High School in Seattle. He has lived in Seattle his whole life, and the last 14 years in Mt. Baker. He is very involved in the Social Political Activism Group at his church, and worked on the Mass Transit Now! campaign this year. In his free time, Lucas plays the cello, skis, and curls. Lucas also works as a youth baseball umpire for the Seattle PONY Baseball League. |
Rosie Spracklin
Rosie Spracklin is a junior at Ballard High School and lives in Magnolia. She is on Ballard’s varsity girls soccer team and a member of the Model United Nations club. Rosie is really interested in the new forms of public transportation emerging in Seattle, such as the South Lake Union Streetcar, and hopes to help those systems grow. |
 Sean Thurman
Sean Thurman attends Ballard High School and is a representative of the Ballard/ Crown Hill area of Seattle. He has lived in Ballard in the same house his entire life and is intimately familiar with his neighborhood. He works in the neighborhood at Crown Hill Automotive. In school, he is a National Honor Society member. He has future plans of volunteering with Earth Corps because the state of our current environment concerns him. Transportation is the issue he feels most passionately about. He feels that Seattle is light years behind many other cities in this country and around the globe on this issue and would like to have a parting bridging the gap. |
 Xinyu Wang
Xinyu Wang, a student from Ingraham High School, represents the Northeast neighborhood. On June 22, 2006, Xinyu immigrated from China to United States. In 2007, he volunteered at Chinese Information Service Center to work with immigrants. In June 2008, Xinyu was successfully elected as clubs and organization representative of Ingraham High School Student Council. He is also the only ESL student elected into the student council. Xinyu also volunteered in the Governor Chris Gregoire re-election campaign this year. Xinyu is interested in expanding his horizon in politics and wishes more young people will participate in American politics. One of the issues he is most passionate about is protecting the rights of immigrants. |
 Arielle Washington
Arielle Washington is sixteen years old and is a junior attending Chief Sealth High School. She represents the West Seattle Neighborhood. Last year as a sophomore she was the project manager/coordinator for a cross-country bike riding trip, formed to raise environmental awareness. Her job consisted of the planning and organizing of events and doing a lot of community outreach. She is a part time running start student at South Seattle Community College and currently takes three classes there. This past summer she worked at Arte Wolfe photo gallery as an assistant. Arte Wolfe is a renowned nature photographer and environmentalist. She has been working closely with him for the past three years on environmental projects. The ONE issue that she is most passionate about is Gang Violence. She has been impacted by this issue tremendously, losing cousins, uncles, grandparents, and friends to gang violence. She wants to do as much as she can to decrease gang violence, especially because she has lost so many loved ones. Last year she served on the Mayor’s Council and enjoyed meeting other like-minded youth, learning more about city government, and impacting local government. She has decided to serve as council member again because she feels that this is one way she can continue have a positive influence on her community and give back to her community through various forms of community outreach. |
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