CTData Data Engagement Specialist Jackie Vancour with 2026 Hartford Youth Data Fellows Wilondja Jerome, Rhianna Munroe, Trinade Whittingham, and Kaliya Dawkins

On May 7, 2026, CTData hosted our annual Hartford Youth Data Spotlight, showcasing youth-led research projects that demonstrated how young people can use data to better understand and address issues facing their communities. This year's event highlighted the work of two groups of young researchers who partnered with CTData throughout the past year.

First, nine participants in the 2026 Hartford Youth Data Fellowship, a program CTData has run annually since 2022, shared their data snapshots on education and housing topics. This year's cohort included two high school seniors, five college students, and two young adults working in the community. Through workshops on data literacy, data analysis, data visualization, and data storytelling, fellows met twice weekly from January through April to learn how to work with public and administrative datasets to investigate issues affecting Hartford residents. Their projects explored issues related to housing conditions and affordability across Hartford neighborhoods and education and workforce pathways for Hartford youth.

The 2026 Hartford Youth Data Fellows: Kaliya Dawkins; Wilondja Jerome; Deion Kelly; Shabato Munezero; Rhianna Munroe; Berny Perez; Taylor Powell; Alma Velez; and Trinade Whittingham.

The Spotlight also featured the work of six Hartford Youth Researchers—alumni of the Hartford Youth Data Fellowship who returned to CTData for an extended research opportunity that focused on sports and recreation access in Hartford. Thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CTData was able to bring back these former fellows for a nine-month research project beginning in August 2025. Throughout the project, youth researchers received additional training in survey development, focus group facilitation, and qualitative data analysis while conducting original community-based research.

Director Kate Eikel explaining the purpose of the data walk

John D'Souza, Nashali Johnson, Samra Mujcinovic, Alex Roberts, Jahlani Ustanny, and Tatiana Watson gathered input from Hartford youth, parents, and community members to better understand barriers to sports and recreation participation, including affordability, transportation, facility access, and program availability. Their findings highlighted community perspectives from focus groups and a parent survey to provide recommendations for improving access to recreational opportunities across the city.

Hartford Youth Researchers Tatiana Watson, Samra Mujcinovic, Nashali Johnson, John D’Souza, and Jahlani Ustanny.

In addition to the youth presentations, CTData unveiled a new interactive spatial map of sports and recreation amenities in Hartford. The mapping tool helps visualize the location of parks, recreation centers, sports facilities, and other community assets, providing valuable information for residents, community organizations, and policymakers seeking to expand equitable access to recreation opportunities.

The Hartford Youth Data Spotlight continues to demonstrate the power of youth-led research and the importance of investing in young people's ability to collect, analyze, and communicate data. By combining lived experience with research skills, Hartford's youth are helping inform community conversations and shape solutions to issues that matter most to them. All youth received stipends for their work and transportation vouchers to help with getting from school to our offices.

While the projects showcased the power of data to better understand community issues, the experience also had a meaningful impact on the young people involved. Participants reflected on the skills they developed, the relationships they built, and how the opportunity helped them see themselves as researchers and community leaders. Here are a few of their reflections:

“As a Hartford Youth Data Fellow, I’ve learned how to analyze data and use it to understand real issues in my community. This experience has shown me how data can be used to make informed decisions and create positive change in Hartford.”- Shabato Munezero, Hartford Youth Data Fellow 2026

Hartford Youth Researcher Alex Roberts shares data findings from community survey on sports and recreation access in Hartford.

“My interest in this program is personal: growing up, my lack of transportation often kept me from participating in after-school programs, making me a passionate supporter of student accessibility. Through this program, I learned how to develop focus group questions with my peers and analyze qualitative data. Also, I assisted in creating survey questions for parents and helped build data visualizations from the results. It was an insightful experience that strengthened my technical skills, and hoping my contribution helps the Hartford community thrive.” -Nashali Johnson, Hartford Youth Data Fellow 2025 and Youth Researcher.

Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam also addressed attendees, highlighting the importance of data literacy and the benefits to the city when more residents have the skills to understand, analyze, and use data. He noted that empowering community members—especially young people—to engage with data strengthens civic participation, informs community-driven solutions, and helps ensure that decisions are grounded in a deeper understanding of local issues.

“Data is so deeply a part of our vision in trying to build the city that I think every resident deserves. I just want you all to know this is not just a project, this is not just something you were learning, it is something that sets you far apart from many of the policymakers that you're speaking to. Your voices matter, your thoughts and analysis of our challenges matter, and I hope that you take these projects that you've done and use them to create change because we need it so much here in our capital city.” -Mayor Arulampalam

The 2026 Hartford Youth Data Walk highlights the Hartford Data Collaborative’s work sharing data in Hartford. You can read more about prior years’ data walks here: 2025, 2024, 2023, and 2022. The next group of youth will begin in January 2027 and applications will open in the fall of 2026.

CTData would like to thank the Greater Hartford Gives Foundation, the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, the Travelers Foundation (the charitable arm of Travelers), and the City of Hartford-funded Community Development Block Grants for their support of the Hartford Youth Data Fellowship program. More information about the program can be found here.

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Hartford Youth Data Fellows create community-based data projects through a paid fellowship with the Hartford Data Collaborative, a project of CTData (click here to learn more). To review more Hartford data projects by CTData, click here. You can keep up with us by subscribing to the CTData newsletter and following us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Hartford Youth Shine at Annual Youth Data Spotlight

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