WHO AM I
My name is Ishan Mehta, this is my second year in Y&G, and I am the president of Fremont/Newark. After spending the last year working with talented people all over the program, I wanted to take a shot at Secretary of State. I truly enjoy politics and learning about our country, and hope I can use some of this knowledge to not only improve Y&G, but our communities as well. A couple quick fun facts about me: I play baseball and run cross country for Kennedy High in Fremont, and play guitar and enjoy cooking.
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CANDIDATE STATEMENT
Hello, my name is Ishan Mehta from the Fremont/Newark delegation and I am running for your Secretary of State. I am a returning delegate of the program and want to run for a regional position this year. I am running on a mental health platform since mental illness rates in California are in rapid increase, specifically in teenagers. I plan to endorse and write policies to regulate the amount and difficulty of schoolwork while adding more minimum days and breaks in order to ensure better mental health in teenagers. High schools are notorious for assigning immense amounts of work, which students have to balance with extracurriculars like sports and clubs. This causes severe levels of depression, anxiety, and OCD, in teenagers; these illnesses are taking and ruining lives at alarming rates. As your Secretary of State, it will be my top priority to work with policymakers around the state to regulate school course loads and allocate days off to help teenage mental health. With your vote, I will fight to make change to improve mental health in California!
PLATFORM
MENTAL HEALTH
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Increase Funding for Specially Trained Public School Psychologists to reach a 1:500 psychologist to student ratio.
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Strike deals with self-care companies such as Headspace to increase accessibility to mental health resources such as apps for students.
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Implement classes, lectures, and assemblies to help students learn about mental health.
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Develop a year-round education system, giving students better spaced breaks to improve mental health.
REDISTRICTING
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Work with legislators to identify gerrymandered districts.
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Keep all districts equal in size and coherent in shape.
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Put independent commissions in charge of redistricting.
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Enforce non-partisan affiliation in the redistricting process to avoid bias and unpopular representation.
ENVIRONMENT
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Form a climate-change task force in Y&G that works with legislators & the governor to pass bills addressing and reducing climate change.
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Try to make more of California forests under state control in order to ensure a more effective response.
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Raise awareness for climate change through weekly seminars at middle/high scholls about news regarding global warming, CO2 levels, etc.
Y&G IMPROVEMENTS
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Integrate performance reviews and policy recommendations in which delegates have an opportunity to communicate with leaders about their desires in the program
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Incorporate mandatory phonebanks during election years to give delegates an opportunity to explore real-world politics
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Publicize Y&G more efficiently through social media, bringing attention to what the program is and what it does
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Collaborate with local businesses to raise money for delegates to afford Y&G
