Country of Residence
United States
Age
15
Project title
Virtutem Populo, Inc.
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Virtutem Populo turns civic education into civic power by giving young people real opportunities to learn how public systems work, enter the rooms where decisions are made, speak, create, lead and contribute solutions. Through nine student-led programs across Miami-Dade, we are building something I wish every young person had: a clear doorway from caring about your community to knowing how to change it.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://virtutempopulo.org/; https://www.instagram.com/virtutem_populo/
Project Category
My project is an existing project started by another young person that I am replicating
Project Stage
Scaling (We’re expanding impact to new locations or in new and innovative ways)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I did not found Virtutem Populo. I inherited the responsibility of leading it, and that distinction matters to me. My own spark came years earlier. When I was seven, a candidate knocked on our door and asked what I wanted to be. I said, "A politician, but not the corrupt kind." My mother, a Jamaican immigrant, took her flyer and later threw it away. Government felt like something happening around families like mine, not something we could touch. Years later, at 11, that same woman gave me my first internship in government, and I was able work on legislation for license plate readers in my school zone after my friends were getting killed due to speeding. I learned that my problem was never a lack of interest. It was a lack of introduction - of connection. When founder Maurits Acosta eventually trusted me with Virtutem Populo's executive leadership, I saw the opportunity differently. VP already did meaningful work. My "aha" was realizing we could build more than programs. We could build the introductions I had once needed into a system. That a door that opened for me should be opened for all of my peers! I began asking a question that now shapes my leadership: how do we make civic opportunity something young people can enter repeatedly, rather than something a lucky student accidentally finds? I got lucky. My goal is to make luck unnecessary.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Young people are constantly told we are "the future" while being given remarkably little practice shaping the present. The problem is bigger than whether students can name the branches of government. A student can pass a civics test and still have no idea where a city council meets, how to give public comment, whom to contact about an unsafe intersection, how a public budget affects their neighborhood, or whether anyone in power would take them seriously if they showed up. That creates an access gap. Young people care, but too many never receive the invitation, knowledge, confidence or repeated practice needed to turn concern into contribution. I know that gap personally. My family cared about our community, but government once felt distant from our kitchen table. One introduction changed that for me. I do not want civic opportunity to depend on which child happens to meet the right adult. Miami-Dade does not have a shortage of young people with opinions, ideas or talent. We have a shortage of accessible pathways that teach them what to do with those things. VP exists to make those pathways visible, practical and repeatable.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Virtutem Populo is building a youth civic participation infrastructure around three verbs: Educate. Activate. Advocate. We do not require students to follow one perfect pathway. We build many doors into public life. A middle schooler might first encounter us through Constitution Day Quest, where a government chamber becomes an interactive civic classroom. Another may spend months preparing with their school for our Civic Knowledge Bowl. Through Youth Governance Day, students move from observing government to sitting beside mayors, council members and public administrators. Through our Civic Action Podcast, they research and interview decision makers themselves. Strive305 goes deeper. Fellows study economics and public systems, conduct field research, develop solutions and carry their work into public settings. Our first cohort developed a Legacy Business framework and presented it before a Miami-Dade County Commission committee. We have also expanded what "civic voice" can look like. Speak Out September helps young people move from an issue they notice to public comment and a specific ask. PUBLIC. uses poetry, music, film, movement and visual art to make community concerns visible beyond a government podium. The programs are different on purpose. The operating idea is the same: students are producers, not attendees. They leave with something they did: an argument, interview, policy idea, public comment, pitch, artwork, competition result or leadership responsibility. We are not teaching young people that they will have power someday. We are giving them responsible ways to practice it now.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
The easiest thing to count is who showed up. I care more about what they did once they arrived. Virtutem Populo has engaged thousands of young people since 2022 and raised more than $120,000 for youth civic programming. Our Civic Knowledge Bowl grew from 12 participating schools to 21, a 75% increase. Youth Governance Day has expanded across 23 municipalities. Our Civic Action Podcast has reached more than 2,000 students. But my favorite number may be $200. We once trusted a student, Isabella, with a $200 microgrant. She turned that small vote of confidence into thousands of pieces of clothing for people experiencing homelessness, hundreds of books for children, meals for families and eventually an initiative of her own. That is the impact I want VP to multiply: young people moving from recipient to producer, participant to leader, and eventually door-opener for somebody else. Under my leadership, we have also strengthened the organization behind that impact by expanding programs, professionalizing team structure, growing partnerships and fundraising, and building a clearer system for measuring student outcomes. I don't want VP merely to reach more students. I want us to prove that students leave with more power to act.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Our innovation is not that we invented civics. It is that we redesigned who gets to practice it, how early they begin, and what counts as participation. Many civic education programs explain government. We make students use it. Youth councils can give a small number of students an advisory seat. We build multiple entry points for hundreds of young people to compete, interview, research, create, speak and lead. Internships are powerful, but often reward students who already know where to find them. VP tries to build the earlier doorway, before a student has the network, résumé or confidence that normally unlocks access. And we do it peer to peer. A student is not simply the person receiving the program. Students design curriculum, manage programs, build communications, raise money, coordinate partners and evaluate one another. Twenty-seven young people currently hold organizational roles, with adult governance protecting the mission rather than replacing youth leadership. Since taking executive leadership, I have pushed VP to operate less like a collection of good events and more like infrastructure. We have built clearer departments, program ownership, digital systems, communications engines, measurement tools and a common Educate, Activate, Advocate framework. That allows us to experiment without losing our identity. A civics competition, an economic fellowship, a public-comment campaign and a civic arts program can look completely different while producing the same thing: a young person who knows how to move from "I care" to "I can act." That is the innovation I want to scale.
How many people are on your team?
27
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Twenty-seven students currently hold roles across executive leadership, programming, policy and advocacy, communications, partnerships, finance, technology and volunteer engagement. I set organizational direction as CEO, but I do not want 27 assistants. I want 27 owners. Chiefs lead functions, program managers own programs end to end, coordinators execute the work, and our Board provides governance. My job is increasingly to build leaders who can lead without me.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
My next year is about proving that what we built can become deeper, more measurable and less dependent on any one person. First, we are strengthening measurement. Across programs, we are building a common outcomes system around civic knowledge, communication confidence, leadership identity, economic understanding and civic action. That means moving beyond attendance toward pre and post measures, work samples, reflections, repeat participation and follow up on what students actually do afterward. Second, we are strengthening the pathway from expression to action. Speak Out September is helping us test a simple model for turning an issue a young person notices into research, a clear ask and public comment. PUBLIC. tests another doorway through civic art. We want to learn which entry points reach students traditional civics misses. Third, we are preparing for responsible expansion. Before putting VP's name in another city, I want the model documented: program playbooks, training, safeguarding, measurement, partner standards and student leadership succession. Finally, I want to deepen peer leadership. Students who enter through a program should have clearer opportunities to return as facilitators, organizers and program leaders. My goal is not a bigger calendar. It is a stronger civic institution young people can inherit.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
I have learned that the best invitation to a young person is rarely "join my organization." It is "here is something real you can do." So we recruit around action. A school can build a team and compete in the Civic Knowledge Bowl. A student can spend a day inside local government. Someone interested in business can join Strive305. A poet or filmmaker can enter through PUBLIC. A student frustrated about something in their neighborhood can use Speak Out September to turn that frustration into public comment. We also use something youth organizations sometimes underestimate: consistent communication. Under my leadership, we have treated social media, storytelling and outreach as civic infrastructure rather than decoration. We built a more consistent content engine, passed 1,000 followers, strengthened school and institutional outreach, and use student stories to show what participation actually looks like. Most importantly, young people recruit young people. Participants become volunteers. Volunteers become coordinators. Coordinators become managers and officers. Graduates can return through governance and mentorship. That matters because the strongest proof that youth leadership works is not me standing on another stage talking about it. It is another young person standing somewhere I used to stand, without needing me beside them.
