PAST CONFERENCES
BOSTON YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE 2007
One Moment, One Mind, For Change
Teen Empowerment's 15th annual Boston Youth Peace Conference was held on Saturday, May 19, at Roxbury Community College. The day included:
- A 90-minute show about the issues youth deal with every day. Thirty young people spoke from the heart, danced, rapped, and acted in an intense drama.
- "Connection Session" workshops. Thirty-five youth facilitated sessions that helped conference participants connect with one another and think about ways to increase the peace in their neighborhoods.
- A Healing Ceremony. Members of the audience came to the microphone to speak about their concerns. TE youth introduced the New Code of the Streets (one-page download).
- Finally, a dynamite performance by Mighty Mystic!
Check out the news coverage--
WBZ-TV: Focused on a powerful speech by youth organizer Jumaane Kendrick.
New England Cable News: Interviewed youth organizers Jumaane Kendrick and Jacquelina Fontes about the New Code of the Streets.
SOMERVILLE YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE 2007
Filling the Streets with the Pieces of Peace
TE's 1st annual Somerville Youth Peace Conference was on April 7 at Somerville High School. This amazing day featured music, theater, speeches, spoken word, an info fair, and youth-led dialogue sessions, and ended with a fabulous performance by Mighty Mystic. Read the Somerville Journal's coverage of the conference, and read an op-ed article from the Journal by TE youth organizer Derek Anderson about some of the issues addressed. See a powerful speech about growing up in Somerville given by Mark McLaughlin.
The conference was cosponsored by the City of Somerville, Mayor Joe Curtatone, and Somerville Cares About Prevention. For more information about the conference or TE's Somerville program, email our Somerville office.
ROCHESTER YOUTH CONFERENCE AND SPEAKOUT 2007
Rated Real: The Resurrection of Hip Hop
On Saturday, October 13, 2007, the 4th annual Youth Conference and SpeakOut in Rochester brought together hundreds of youth to explore the impact of Hip Hop on youth culture. Participants in the conference examined where hip hop came from with its roots as a community-based tool to unite, empower, and fight oppression, versus where it is today as a largely commercially driven form of self-oppression. From these understandings, youth strategized how to concretely "take back hip hop" to heal violence and promote positive social change.
BOSTON YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE 2006
TE's 14th annual Boston Youth Peace Conference took place on May 13, 2006, at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. The escalating violence in Boston heightened the importance of this conference to the youth of the city. The hall was filled to capacity, in spite of the torrential rain outside. More than 1,000 youth and adults attended, and 58 young people took on leadership roles as speakers, group facilitators, or performers.
The day opened with powerful youth speakers, a short play about life in the city, performances by the winners of TE's rap and poetry contest, and a spectacular dance by Spirit Dancers from Dreamers, Inc. Then, there were interactive workshops led by youth, a chance to speak out to state legislators, and a community healing ceremony led by two inspiring women, Tina Chery and Tonya David.
To see clips of the plays, poems, songs, dances, and speeches from this conference, check out Teen Empowerment TV on YouTube.
The Peace Conference was a part of Peace Weekend, which included the Mothers Walk for Peace, a project of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. See coverage of the Peace Weekend press conference.