In Conversation with Y-Plan and Escuela Popular

“In Conversation” is a video interview series that Jessica Graham, Google’s Downtown West community engagement manager is hosting to highlight interesting ideas and thought-provoking discussions with our partners, stakeholders and community members.

Watch the full interview with Y-Plan and Escuela Popular

In this episode of “In Conversation”,  we met up (virtually) with two fantastic women leaders: Patricia Reguerin of Escuela Popular and Deborah McKoy of Y-Plan.  Deborah explains the Y-Plan program, a civic learning initiative that engages young people in city planning and social change. Young people are asked to consider, “why are conditions the way they are today, why are things different in San José on one block and profoundly different on another block.” These are questions that the students at Escuela Popular tackled this spring semester. Patricia then jumped in to talk about Escuela Popular, which was founded in 1986 by Patricia’s mother to teach English to immigrant families in east San José.

As Patricia explains, “We don’t look at our students at what they don’t have, but more so what are they bringing in and how we build on top of that.” The Downtown West team was excited to host a project with the students at Escuela Popular recently through Y-Plan’s program, in order to listen to students’ ideas, feedback, questions, and concerns on the Downtown West project.  Watch the whole interview here to learn more about how Escuela Popular found Y-Plan and the importance of this type of partnership.

Have thoughts? Email us any comments or questions you may have at downtownwest@google.com

Thanks for joining us and look out for the next conversation to be shared soon.