CRT Summer Youth Employment Program Intern Shares Experience Promoting Need for COVID Vaccine Among Fellow Teens

Rhaili-Em Lowe was one of more than 85 young adults who spent time this summer as an intern working with CRT’s Summer Youth Employment and Learning Program. This summer, the students dedicated their time to helping to educate others in the community – especially their peers – about the need for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Her efforts were featured on the front page of the Hartford Courant this past weekend.

As she told the paper: “I’ve been a remote learner for one-and-a-half years. I’m trying not to have it happen again,” said Lowe, a rising junior at the Connecticut IB Academy in East Hartford.

Lowe and the other young adults in the program worked to promote COVID-19 vaccine awareness through projects like creating hundreds of yard signs distributed citywide. They also hosted a Zoom panel discussion about vaccine hesitancy among teenagers and misinformation spread through social media.

As she went on to say: “We all miss each other,” she said of her friends. “I want to experience my junior year in some type of normalcy.”

Read the complete article in the Hartford Courant online.

Photo above: Rhaili-Em Lowe, 16, of Hartford, spent her summer interning with CRT’s Summer Youth Employment Program to promote COVID-19 vaccines to teenagers in the Hartford area. Photo by Sofie Brandt/The Hartford Courant.