Written by: Lora Lee, FCSN Voices Youth Reporter
Graphics by: Vanessa Seah, FCSN Voices Graphic Artist

Sending speedy emails, editing through tens of articles a month, and leading an entire team of high school reporters wasn’t initially on 17-year-old Isaac He’s mind when he joined FCSN Voices as an eighth-grader in 2022. But now, as the FCSN VOICES Team Lead, he’s currently in charge of doing all of that and much more. 

Four years ago, Isaac He joined FCSN Voices in the footsteps of his sister, who was on the founding team of this publication. Writing articles as one of the youngest members in the group, he received an email from his own team lead one day, granting him a leadership position along with one of his senior peers to be an editor. 

Now, being able to lead new writers who are starting off just like he did four years ago, he reflects on some of the biggest impacts that FCSN VOICES has had on him. Last year, he attended the Special Needs talent show, and though he was just there as a volunteer and not a reporter, the sheer amount of people he saw at the event took him by a proud surprise.  

“I was just there helping out, but I think just being at that experience, I got to see how large the FCSN community is and how everyone was so supportive. Also, seeing how big of an event was organized to highlight the achievements of some of the FCSN community definitely put into perspective for me that the work we do at Voices is reaching a lot of people and has a concrete impact,” Isaac said. 

Even more, Isaac mentions how his involvement in FCSN VOICES spanned beyond writing and editing articles; he also played a major role in bringing different activities and opportunities to the FCSN community. More specifically, he was able to use his connections as a constant frequenter of a Native American gym in Fremont to involve Special Needs kids into a fun training session for a special type of fighting art called Guardian Art. But more importantly, this type of “fighting”, which has elements similar to parkour and MMA, also had a unique core philosophy behind it: teamwork. 

“I thought that this type of training could greatly benefit a lot of the special needs kids I worked with in the past. So I tried to organize a workshop between FCSN and Nexus, what the gym is called. In total, we held two workshops; the second one was with a paid entry and we had close to 20 attendees.”

However, this achievement didn’t come without its challenges. Between FCSN and Nexus, both sides had concerns about their ability to keep the kids safe during their activities: the commanders had never been trained to work with special needs kids, and the standardized curriculum or Guardian Art seemed to be a bit too aggressive for its special fighters. Despite these bumps in the road, Isaac He was still able to communicate between both FCSN and Nexus and negotiate a collaboration between both organizations. 

“I worked closely with Helen Chou, one of the parent organizers with FCSN, who helped me a lot. And my mentor, Condor Kaan, at the practice game office supported me throughout this as well, so it was kind of like everyone was pushing forward, and eventually it resulted in something successful. In the end, the fact that everyone really, really enjoyed this experience was definitely the most inspiring thing for me.”

Just like how Isaac was in charge of communicating between many different people for his Guardian Art workshop, he also shares that a lot of his responsibilities as Lead Reporter relies on his ability to communicate with everyone around him, from the adults running the events he covers and its volunteers, to the families and friends of the FCSN community. Though it can be a bit tiring and overwhelming at times, he still emphasizes his gratitude towards the people he’s been able to meet and learn from while in this position. 

“I met a lot of amazing people here. Auntie Linmei, for example, I think she is definitely, genuinely, one of the most amazing and outstanding people I’ve ever met because of the amount of commitment and passion she has towards the FCSN mission. She’s an amazing leader as well. All in all, it really is a community where everyone is working together to improve and provide new opportunities. Throughout voices in particular, since we do so much wide coverage of everything within FCSN, you get to really know everything that’s going on, especially within the community.”

Regardless of his senior position at FCSN VOICES, he still gives a lot of credit to the FCSN organization for making his job truly impactful and worthwhile. 

“I’m proud of my work of voices as outreach for a lot of the concrete stuff that’s been going on, and I think media and outreach is definitely a really important thing — we’ve heard from both parents and students about how these articles have impacted their lives. I just think it is part of my duty to place the emphasis upon these programs and how they’re one-to-one interacting with these students, making a direct impact on their lives.”

As the team lead at FCSN VOICES, Isaac also believes that all the publications’ contributions come from the combined efforts of his juniors, not just his individualized dedication. With his leadership role in VOICES, his approach is to continue supporting the new staffers in their own journey with writing. 

“I think the youth reporter team is full of amazing writers. The leadership process is more so just making the editing process a streamlined process while letting them be able to express their creativity and write how they want to. 

“It’s a bit of a cliche, but it’s really like a team effort. I don’t think it’s really something that I can take too much credit for. It’s more so just cool to see everyone’s writing styles and every article has some unique elements I can learn from as well. I think: this kind of vocabulary is cool, this type of wording is maybe something I could use somewhere in the future. The youth reporter team is full of amazing writers. The leadership process is more so just making the editing process a streamlined process while letting them be able to express their creativity and write how they want to.”

Though Isaac’s time in FCSN as a high school reporter, editor, and team lead is coming close to a finish, his time at FCSN hasn’t quite ended yet, and he still has some goals he wishes to see achieved both before he leaves for college and also as this publication continues growing to provide coverage for all types of FCSN events. 

“I hope to see the team differentiate to a certain extent. Shelley’s starting her own blog project with the multimedia team, and we have different projects going on as well — Saanvi’s working on her Twinkle series of articles and John has a series of health articles. Seeing a lot of these youth reporters take on their own initiatives and start their own line of articles is the most exciting thing that I’m excited for in the future. Everyone has their kind of specialty; there’s like a certain element that they want to share with the community, and I think it’s awesome that VOICES can be a way for that.”