I first heard of the Fronterizx Community Project from a teacher in school, I was intrigued and wanted to know more about it but all my teacher knew was the name of the internship and the link to apply, so I waited until class was over to start my search for answers.
I kept putting the internship’s name in the search bar and each time it came back with “no results, did you mean -.” I felt like I had hit a brick wall and the fear of the internship being a scam crept up, so I did what any other teenager in my position would do- apply and hope for the best.
It had been a couple of weeks and I had heard nothing back from the internship nor the application except the chatter in the hallways of whether or not the internship was a scam. My application and the internship quickly became an “out of sight, out of mind” situation and my hopes to hear back from it were little to none. I continued my everyday life and had moved onto having to become the primary source of income within my household. I got a job and continued being an A-Honor roll student both in high school and college.
I was splitting myself in half but doing my best to make it work. Then one day as I was eating before I headed to work, I received an email notification on my phone. I opened it. “Interviews will begin next week....” I could not believe what I had just read and I responded right away with my availability and thanking them a thousand times for giving me a chance. I had my interview and it had gone well. I waited to get an email giving me the verdict.
Little did I know, I would be part of the first cohort of the Fronterizx Community Project, and as a student I would be given the opportunity to travel outside of Texas, advocate at the state capital for better sex education curriculum along with getting to do a lot of fun things from kayaking, to meeting people like Mary Gonzalez.
As a student my ultimate favorite part of the program was the liberty I was given to make my own opinions, ideas, beliefs, and feelings by providing access to sources and tools that allowed me to then make that decision without forcing any values or opinions of West Fund.
At first it was hard to manage everything especially with no support from family and the expectation to not let anyone or anything down which at times I had to in order to keep up with everything else, but thanks to the Fronterizx Community Project I gained set of skills that help me deal with that stress along with the difficult yet exciting new transition from student to one of the supervisor of the Fronterizx Community. Now looking back to my time with the Fronterizx Community Project I could have not seen myself without the opportunity.
I learned how to advocate for myself at the state/local level, the importance of an improvement in the sex education curriculum, what reproductive justice truly means, political and social issues within my community, and so much more that has shaped the person I am today.
If I were to give my old self or any young person interested in getting into the field of advocating advice, I would tell them not to be gatekeepers and to not doubt themselves when applying to opportunities such as this one. Everyone has a different path and sometimes experimenting in different beginnings shines light to new interest and new talents.
Angie is the newest member of the West Fund team and works as our student organizer.
