OC Human Relations’ annual YouthSpeak Speech Contest is a county-wide search for the top human relations speech written by an 8th-12th grade student.
In 2019 OC Human Relations expanded the YouthSpeak contest to include both Middle & High School Students. The theme this year was “The Problem With Labels” High School students were invited to submit a short, inspirational speech reflecting on “What does it mean to label someone and what is the impact on people? What can be done to address the negative impact of labeling a person or a group of people?“ Middle School students were asked to submit an essay on the same topic.After reading through a multitude of high-quality entries and listening to the speeches of the short-listed students, the Board of OC Human Relations made the following decisions:
Middle School Essay Contest: (click on students’ name to read their essay)
1st place – Mackenzie Mauldin from Buena Park Junior High School
2nd place – Ariana Perez of Kraemer Middle School
3rd place – Jimmy Che of Brookhurst Junior High
High School Speech Contest: (click on students’ name to read their speech)
1st place – Sahar Alfatlawi of Anaheim High School
2nd place – Lucia Gonzalez of Saddleback High School
3rd place – Lynn Noh of Crean Lutheran High School & Human Relations Ambassadors Program (HRAP) member
For more information about the YouthSpeak Contests, please contact Julie Vue – julie@splash.ochumanrelations.org or 714-480-6589
Click on the YouthSpeak links on the left to see the speeches of previous years’ winners.
