Ana Despa

Ana is a senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington and has been with the Kentucky Student Voice Team since her sophomore year. She became heavily involved with the team through the Coping with COVID-19 Student to Student survey of over 10,000 middle and high school students in the early days of the pandemic. Since then, she has worked with KSVT's policy ad legislative team on increasing mental health support in schools, co-organized and co-facilitated a virtual town hall with Fayette County board of education candidates and sitting members to increase informed voting on election day, and now serves as the team's School Governance Coordinator. She also served as on the KSVT Forum as a member of the editorial board and a co-editor in chief. Ana enjoys investigative reporting as well as nonfiction narrative writing styles. Besides equity-centered approach of education journalism, her favorite part of journalism with the KSVT is the organization's collaborative nature and its accessibility to students.