How we can become active global citizens 
Bilal Sekou

        Bilal Sekou came to our Global Studies classroom to speak with us on how to become politically active. Bilal shared his thoughts and recommendations for our future selves giving advice such as making voting a habit. He explained that this makes your voice heard in a democracy. Alongside this he shared his ‘Steps’ to success to becoming an active global citizen, and being politically active. First “Have curiosity and knowledge / understanding”, second “work out a plan of action (how do you bring about the change),” and third “we must act, idea, plan, action, do!” Lastly, to be active we must “See what happens, how we are affected, how our understandings of things change based on our actions, see how our possibilities have changed.” Overall I truly enjoyed his presentation. I was already eagerly awaiting to vote in our next election but now even more so. I feel that his advice based speech helped me grasp more ways and ‘steps’ to becoming politically active. Another one of his big ideas is that we shouldn't feel discouraged or small, even if our actions are not making a large impact on the world, and changing world problems. But instead we have to remember that they are still effective and will help to start the change, for “one person may not change the world.” 

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       A large idea that Sekou is currently working on is to lower the voting age to sixteen. His major points are that sixteen year olds are “just as knowledgeable… about civics” and have the same abilities and resources ‘to make good voting decisions’ “...as older voters.” Another large pro of lowering the voting age is that it may “increase voter turnout” thus developing “lifelong habits.” Lastly, sixteen years olds or younger “people should have a voice in laws that affect their lives.” While I agree with the majority of his points, as a sixteen year old myself I see some issues with lowering the voting age. Mainly due to potential lack of education, influenced voting and maturity. Specifically education has to do with one's ability to make informative decisions. This can be helped by taking civics which is typically taught and can be mandatory to receive a diploma from a majority of public high schools. Along with lack or incomplete education I believe that teenagers at the age of sixteen will ‘swing’ the way their role models including how their parents vote. Yet a similar argument can be said about people’s decisions at the age of eighteen, personally I would argue how much in the grand scheme of things will two years change. Lastly, maturity is a large negative factor of lowering the voting age. This is because when voting people need to be mature in their decision making, including one’s reasons for who they are voting and hopefully with good intent, yet this can be applied to any age voters age, lowered age requirement or not. Overall I enjoyed meeting and hearing from Bilal Sekou and look forward to becoming 18, and using his advice in the long run, or even sooner if the voting age is lowered!