In September 2018, Juana and Tajha participated in the Special Olympics Global Youth Leadership Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan and learned how to enhance the impact of their youth leadership and establish a plan to execute their project at home in Immokalee.

Juana and Tajha’s project will help newly recruited Special Olympics Youth Leaders understand what the United Generation is and be able to help create new projects and activities to help engage the other students in their district to create more inclusive school environments. The high school in Immokalee is a National Unified Champion School; Juana and Tajha want to see the middle school recognized as one as well.

To help the middle school reach its goal of becoming a Unified Champion School, Juana and Tajha plan on recruiting and developing new youth leaders from the school. Juana and Tajha will recruit new youth leaders with and without intellectual disabilities from the middle school who have new fresh ideas to start, sustain, and grow inclusive programming so the middle school can participate as a Unified Champion School.

Over the next six months, Juana and Tajha will first recruit the new youth leaders from the middle school and then develop marketing tools to present to the administration staff with the request that the middle school participate as a Unified Champion School. With endorsement from the school staff, Juana, Tajha and the newly trained youth leaders will engage the school body in many unified activities.

By recruiting new youth leaders and planning on making the middle school a Unified Champion School, Juana and Tajha are growing the Unified Generation movement in Florida and beyond.