Correspondent photo / Amanda Smith Josiah Jackson, a seventh grader at Rayen Early College Middle School, was announced Tuesday as the school district ambassador to the National Do The Write Thing Initiative in Washington, D.C. He was chosen from more than 200 students in the Youngstown City School District who wrote essays.

YOUNGSTOWN — Josiah Jackson said writing his essay for the national Do the Write Thing program gave him a chance to finally say something he had carried for years.

“I just want people to understand that it’s okay to be yourself and you shouldn’t let anybody else tell you that it’s not,” Josiah said. “I want people to speak up more, people to speak up like me because it is okay — and you are going to be okay.”

Josiah, a seventh grader at Rayen Early College Middle School, was named Youngstown’s student ambassador Tuesday during the Youngstown City School District’s annual Do the Write Thing recognition luncheon at B&O Station downtown.

As ambassador, Josiah will travel to Washington, D.C., this summer to represent Youngstown at the national Do the Write Thing conference, where students from across the country gather to discuss violence prevention and youth leadership.

The Do the Write Thing initiative, founded by the Kuwait-America Foundation, encourages middle school students to write about violence in their lives and communities and explore ways to prevent it. According to the organization, more than 3.4 million students in 31 communities nationwide have taken part since the program began.

The program asks students to respond to questions about youth violence, its causes and how it can be prevented.

Hannah LaBelle, a teacher at Rayen Early College Middle School, said students often use the essays to discuss personal experiences and emotions they may not otherwise share.

“They get really vulnerable when they’re writing and they enjoy telling their own story and kind of getting it out there,” LaBelle said.

Stephanie Blose, instructional coach at Rayen Early College Middle School, said the writing process can help students work through trauma while also building leadership skills.

“It allows for them to work through some of the internal trauma so that they can release that and move on and be healthy and productive moving forward,” Blose said.

She said students selected as ambassadors meet with peers from around the country and have their writing published in a book housed at the Library of Congress.

“It’s really a wonderful experience, not only for the ambassadors, but for their parents and educators so that we can see how this program really is meant to impact society as a whole,” Blose said.

Josiah’s work was selected from essays created by more than 200 students in the Youngstown City School District. He said he wanted his essay to encourage other young people to express themselves without violence.

“You can talk it out. You can listen to music, you can write about it, you can make a podcast about it, you can start a YouTube channel,” Jackson said. “You can do many things to express to other people how you feel without resorting to violence.”

Other finalists recognized Tuesday were London Bright, Ca’Mya Burnett, Albert Byrd, Nayelis Esteras, Lania Gilford, Gabriella Cruz Maldonado, Zy’ayer Mitchell, Dawn Taylor and Raeghan Wolf.