Arts & Culture | Youth Arts Journalism Initiative
Alice McGill, Hager Ali and Abiba Biao. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Welcome to the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative Class of 2024! We are so excited to have nine of America’s future journalists learning with us this summer. For a first writing exercise during out weeklong intensive, all of them split into groups to learn to write short bios of each other. Read on to meet these young people, and please greet them with open arms if you run into them on assignment!
For the first time this summer, two YAJI alumni, Jayla Anderson and Abiba Biao, also joined as mentors. Abiba is a rising junior at SCSU and Jayla just graduated from Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School and is headed to Vassar in the fall.
Mentor Abiba Biao.
Mentor Abiba Biao, 19, is a rising junior at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) where she is majoring in public health and minoring in journalism and digital humanities. She is an alumna of the spring 2022 cohort of the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative and currently is serving as a mentor and assistant.
Additionally, she is a freelance writer for the Arts Paper, the New Haven Independent and other publications. Biao is passionate about writing and sees it as more than a job but a way to express herself. She lives with her parents and her younger brother in New Haven.
– Written by Ruby Szekeres
Hager Ali is a 16-year-old rising senior at Metropolitan Business Academy, where she’s a member of a book club and English is her favorite subject. While Hagar aspires to be a doctor or lawyer one day, she decided to apply to the Youth Arts Journalism program this year to improve her journalistic skills, which she started developing through a class she took at Metro.
Born in Aden, Yemen, she now lives in New Haven with her parents and her siblings. Hagar’s plans for the immediate future are to keep working hard in school and, most importantly to her, making her parents proud by constantly pushing herself out of her comfort zone.
– Written by Julieta Diaz
Magda Lena Griffel.
Magda Lena Griffel is a 17-year-old graduate of Wilbur Cross High School’s class of 2024. Born with a passion for stories, Magda has always found a way to connect with different forms of storytelling. Magda loves theater and at one time considered life on stage; however, she’s since discovered that her heart belongs to the written word. When it comes to reading, she is a fiction fanatic, but enjoys the occasional biography.
A long-time reader of the Arts Paper, Magda applied to the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative to hone her writing skills and experiment with different kinds of writing. She will attend Columbia University in the fall, where she plans to major in English and ultimately pursue a career as a writer.
– Written by Tristie-Mattea Ortiz
Abraham Perez Orozco.
Abraham Perez Orozco is a lifelong resident of New Haven where he is a rising senior at Hill Regional Career High School and Class of 2025 student council president-elect. A captain of the math club and the tennis team, Abraham is also a musician who plays double bass, violin and guitar. While he mostly plays classical music, he’s a true fan of rock music, specifically the Deftones.
When he’s not immersed in school and music, he coaches soccer and choreographs. A bit of a film buff, he said his favorite movies are “21 Jump Street” and “The Dark Knight,” both of which he’s seen multiple times. He learned about the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative while taking a class at Southern Connecticut State University and is excited to continue exploring journalism.
– Written by Alice McGill
Marasi Elsheikh and Mi'Chelle Payano Sosa.
Marasi Elsheikh is a 15-year-old rising junior at New Haven Academy. Born in Sudan, she immigrated to New Haven with her family when she was three. Marasai lives in the Westville section of the city and has an appreciation for the strong sense of community and arts opportunities available to her.
She dreams of one day being a CEO who has power and influence, she said. Science is her favorite subject and soccer is her favorite sport. When she has time, she enjoys listening to music by her favorite artist, Tyler the Creator, and reading books like “Girl in Pieces,” by Kathleen Glasgo.
– Written by Mi'Chelle Payano Sosa
Alice McGill is a 17-year-old rising senior at James Hillhouse High School and also attends ACES Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) where she fuels her passion for theater. An aspiring theater director, Alice said some of her favorite plays include “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Born in Chicago, Ill., she and her family moved to New Haven when she was one-and-a half. In her free time, Alice loves reading, writing and hanging out with her friends making memories and listening to music. While she’s not certain what university she’d like to attend after graduation, she has her heart set on a big city. Alice said she applied to the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative so she could learn to write articles and engage more directly in the New Haven arts scene.
– Written by Abraham Perez Orozco
Tristie-Mattea Ortiz
Tristie-Mattea Ortiz, 18, was born in the Bronx, but she’s called Connecticut home since she was one. She is a 2024 graduate of West Haven High School and said she applied to the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative to gain more journalism experience and hopes to pursue a career in that field. Tristie-Mattea has a passion for comics that started with her childhood love of the comic book superhero Spider-Man.
She shares her passion for comics with her brother and admits to having a big imagination and often walks with “a superhero universe in her head.” Tristie-Mattea Ortiz said that she’s interested in seeing her imaginary universe published one day, but simultaneously finds “writing stories scary.” Nevertheless, it’s a fear she’ll have the opportunity to face when she attends Simmons University this fall.
– Written by Magda Lena Griffel
Mi’Chelle Payano Sosa is a 16-year-old rising junior at West Haven High School involved in her school community through extracurricular activities like the gardening club. Mi’Chelle also is an avid reader and writer and student athlete who swims and plays softball.
Mi’chelle sees participating in the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative as a great opportunity to explore her interests and connect more deeply to her community. She currently makes some of that deeper connection as a lifeguard for West Haven beaches and schools and when she’s not doing that, she’s spending time with her pets. Mi’Chelle has an interest in international affairs and hopes to one day work in The Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
–Written by Marasi Elsheikh
Julieta Diaz.
Julieta Diaz is a 15-year-old sophomore at Metropolitan Business Academy. At home and in school, her favorite hobbies include singing, playing clarinet, learning piano, and playing Mexican guitarrón. Her favorite class is math, and she is also in the book club, secretary of a youth group, and a soccer player for Hill Regional Career High School and James Hillhouse High School.
While Julieta was born in Waterbury, her family relocated to Guatemala when she was just one year old, and returned to Connecticut when she was seven. Although she does not know what she wants to do when she is older, she was interested in applying to the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative because it gives her a chance to write about her Guatemalan heritage and members of the Fair Haven neighborhood, where she lives.
– Written by Hager Ali
Ruby Szekeres.
Ruby Szekeres is a 15-year-old student at the Sound School. An avid writer and children’s fiction author, she published her first book at 11. Now she has published seven books, with her most recent being "The Adventures of Silverwood." The book follows the chronicles of Alaster, a beetle who navigates the small bug town to Silverwood.
As part of the first summer cohort of the Youth Arts Journalism,Ruby hopes to learn how to use her writing to empower communities and make new friends.
– Written by Abiba Biao