SAMPLE OF PAST SITE EVENTS

U-N-I-TE: Bringing the Community Together for Peace
Dorchester site
This event was highlighted by a compact--the Community-Cop Connection Agreement (1-page download)--between youth and the Boston Police Department, represented by Commissioner Edward Davis and several other officers. More than 200 youth and adults attended the event, which also featured rap, dance, poetry, theater, speeches, and more. 

Urban-Suburban School Exchange
TE coordinated three successful exchanges between students from Boston's English High School and suburban Winchester High. One Winchester student wrote about the experience: "Meeting these students gave me a new perspective on life in general and made the topics we have been studying in class such as racial oppression and injustice real to me . . . Words simply cannot express what a powerful and amazing experience this was." Read about one exchange in TE's Spring 2006 newsletter.

Citywide Vibe and Conference Follow-up
Rochester site
A safe social gathering for teens with positive and critical-thinking messages. Eighty young people experienced a unique dance party event, which began with intentional, low-risk activities that got young people from across the city, including rival neighborhoods, mingling in a more meaningful way. The youth organizers presented convincingly portrayed, high-quality skits showing everyday life on the streets and hosted an open mike poetry jam, both of which highlighted questions raised by challenging realities.

Following this event, the group focused on bringing messages about the priority issues from their December Youth Conference to a larger audience by speaking at and participating in numerous collaborative initiatives. March 2007

Night with the Neighbors
Somerville site
This event brought together more than 150 neighborhood youth and adults and involved them in activities designed to break down stereotypes and build relationships through interactive exercises and youth speeches and performances. December 2006

Winter Bash
Somerville site
This youth gathering brought together over 200 Somerville youth and featured youth speeches and performances about violence prevention and community involvement. The event also included interactive activities designed to build relationships among the youth present. In addition, a group of police officers from the Metropolitan Regional Anti-Gang Violence Enforcement Task Force stopped by. They left to respond to a shooting of a youth just a few blocks away. TE staff and youth believe the event and its presentation of positive messages was instrumental in diffusing tensions associated with the shooting. In addition a few TE youth organizers who knew the shooting victim spoke with him in the days following the incident and were able to convince him not to retaliate. December 2006