Jasmine Elbarbary, a Project Coordinator for the City of Los Angeles, spoke to La Femme Monday to educate students with the skills needed to run for public office and to discuss the youth programs that the city offers.

Elbarbary, who works in the Department of Neighborhood and Empowerment, told students about two programs: Civic Youth and IgniteLA.

Civic Youth, she told the club, is a six week summer program hosted in Los Angeles City Hall focused on educating students about local government and neighborhood councils.

“We’re all very aware of what’s going on at the national level, and that’s important, but people often aren’t aware of what’s going on at the local level that is going to impact you very quickly,” Elbarbary said.

According to Elbarbary, IgniteLA is a free program hosted twice a year focused on empowering young women to run for public office.

“A couple of your peers have even gone through these programs and graduated,” Elbarbary said.

Students also participated in an activity in which they stood up and gave one-minute speeches on a topic of their choice.

The activity was supposed to mirror the feeling of making a pitch to a city council, Elbarbary explained.

Elbarbary said that the biggest message she hoped to convey was how possible and important it is for Angeleno youth to use their interests and strengths to help the city.

“I thought the speaker was very informative and knowledgeable of her field and it made me feel inspired to work for my community, club leader Conner Corley ’20 said. “It made me feel like I have a voice in determining what happens in the city.”