The League of Women Voters of New York State believes that educating and empowering the youth of our country is vital to maintaining a strong democracy. Through the League’s Education Foundation, the State League and many local Leagues operate programs that provide students with the information, motivation, and skills to become informed voters and engaged citizens. The State League’s primary youth program is Students Inside Albany.

2012 Students Inside Albany (March 25-28, 2012)

SIA continues to expand and has the greatest involvement by different leagues throughout the state. The LWVNYS provides not only the administration of this program, the materials that leagues can use to  find the students to represent the league, but also pays for the entire cost of the four day program for one student from each league  with the exclusion of the trip to and from Albany.  If any league wishes to send additional students, there is a cost of approximately $600.00 to cover the expense.  Many leagues have used their other youth programs (names, descriptions of these programs, and contact people appear on this site)  as a way to identify students to represent them in Albany.  Leagues like the LWVNYC have given extra recognition to their representatives.

2012 Students Inside Albany Conference (March 25-28, 2012)
Please find below links to sample documents used to find, recruit and select a student to attend SIA Conference. Feel free to revise of modify any of the documents especially to include your local League contact info. If you have problems, just call the office and we can adjust it for you.  Start now – the deadline to send the student’s name to the state office is February 1, 2012 (earlier than last year).

• 2012 Brochure
• Ideas Where to Find a Student
• Sample Recruitment Flyer
• Sample Application
• Sample Community News Notice
• Sample Invitation Letter
• Sample Letter to School for Applications
• Sample Letter to School for Nominations
• Sample Nomination Form

2011 SIA Participant, Jamie Rosen, Selected for US Senate Youth Program (1/11/2012)
Students Inside Albany Conference participant was selected as one of 2 high school students statewide to participate in the US Senate Youth Program in Washington, DC, in March 2012.

Video relating to student’s experiences.
Hamilton County MAL created a DVD interviewing the student in Albany who was their SIA representative in 2010.  This is an excellent tool to be used to recruit volunteers and can be purchased.  Contact: Nancy Grosselfinger.

SIA 2011 PHOTO GALLERIES

2010 STUDENTS INSIDE ALBANY CONFERENCE (April 11-14, 2010)

Vote18 is an active, interactive romp through history, developed to impress upon students, in a visceral way, the importance of voting. The program was designed to be presented in one classroom session of 40 minutes to one hour. The Vote18 curriculum belongs to a separate not-for-profit corporation, which has trained League members to teach it in high schools throughout the state.

• LWV of Huntington is training high school students in the Huntington Youth Council to present this program in junior high and elementary schools.   The LWV of Huntington has presented this program to over 3000 high school students.  They are now looking to bring the program with the help of high school students to elementary and junior high schools.
  Contact: Judie Gorenstein.
  
• This has been successful program in LWV of Rye, Rye Brook, PortChester, in educating students as well as adults. They also held training session for future leaders of the program.  Contact: Debbie Reisner.
• Vote 18 national website