By CANDACE WINEGRAD
UW News Lab

Maya Enista Smith’s journey to successful leader began before she was even born.

“My mother went to sleep one night and had this really vivid dream about this little girl wearing purple pants, playing on a playground,” Smith said. “It filled my mom with a great sense of fear because she realized that the rights, opportunities and freedoms she had dreamed of for her (future) family would not be possible in Romania.”

Smith, a first-generation American born to Romanian parents, added, “She woke up the next morning and said to my father, ‘We need to go to America’.”

Her future would be cemented in civic engagement on her first day as an undergraduate at Rutgers University a decade ago.

“My first day of college was September 11, 2001, and I said ‘OK, universe, you’re trying to tell me something’,” Smith said. “I realized that my job was to build communities, cross boundaries and to really empower this generation to understand the full potential that we have.”

Smith is now the CEO of Mobilize.org, a site that works to give young people a platform to organize, lead and solve their community issues. She was the featured guest for the final discussion of CityClub’s Community Matters campaign, which met Nov. 21 in Kane Hall. The UW Department of Communication co-presented the event.

CityClub, a Seattle-based group established in 1980, creates events that provide “a non-partisan forum for ideas and debate.”

“We take a timely subject, and we talk about it all season,” said Diane Douglas, Executive Director for CityClub. “This season’s topic was ‘What is great citizenship’ and ‘What does citizenship need to look like in the 21st century?’”

Discussion moderator Mónica Guzmán, a GeekWire.com columnist and former CityClub board member, explained that Community Matters is yet another branch of CityClub’s goals for community interaction.

“(Community Matters) is a campaign where CityClub representatives go to gatherings of people and (they) start to talk about your neighborhood. … Where it is that you feel connected, where it is that you don’t.”

In light of their discussion of civic engagement, Smith was an ideal guest. She began working with Rock the Vote at the age of 17 and continues to inspire young adults at Mobilize, now in its 10th year.

“We don’t ask young people enough about what challenges they are facing and what ideas they have to fix them,” Smith said. “Tapping into the creativity of this generation is the clear way to address some of the challenges this country is facing.”

Mobilize.org began hosting summits for young adults in 2007, after complaints about stereotyping of the young generation.

“They were sick of being talked to like they were the future leaders, instead of being recognized for the immense capacity that they had to impact change today,” Smith explained.

These young adults, which Mobilize.org and Smith refer to as “Millennials” (those born between 1976 and 1996), hold these meetings regularly to participate in their own brand of civic engagement.

“We bring young people together to talk about the unique issues that they face, work collaboratively to form solutions, and then compete for funding to implement these solutions,” Smith said.

The discussion was also heavy on the growing involvement of technology in civic engagement.

“We’re the largest generation in history, the most diverse generation in history — we’re the tech-savvy generation,” Smith said. “We’re the first ‘always connected’ generation.”

While many young adults today are criticized for their constant need to use technology, Smith believes that it is a tool that can help advance efforts to solve problems.

“Social media is the next generation of community media. … I think (having) information at our fingertips is really challenging nonprofits, elected officials and political parties to relate in a way that’s much more authentic, and much more transparent.”

Though technology clearly offers people a way to accomplish many things a lot quicker, Smith said it should not replace our real contact with one another.

“You now just press a button and go into your home, and you don’t need to engage with anyone else,” Smith said. “So the steps I would suggest is to just look up from your computer every once in awhile. … Value human interaction and taking the time to talk to people.”

Candace Winegrad is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.