TEEN EMPOWERMENT ROCHESTER, NY

 

A taste of what you'll find on May 2nd (click) 

And click here to help us celebrate! 

 
Our 2013 Community Luncheon will celebrate the
first 10 years of Teen Empowerment in Rochester!
Thursday, May 2, 2013, 11:00am-1:30pm
at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center

 

 

Teen Cafe Nights & Community Meetings

The 2012-13 youth organizer group has been organizing creative initiatives at the TE site on Genesee Street involving more than 200 neighborhood youth so far.
 
Supporting each other in sharing their hearts, struggles and visions toward making real change, together.

 

 
 
Their participation in community forums has brought tangible, moving insights to community leaders.

 

METLIFE AWARD TO TE AND ROCHESTER POLICE

Teen Empowerment Rochester and the Rochester Police Department have received the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award for their work together to improve safety and strengthen community-police relations. Read all about it.

TE's unique youth hiring process was recently featured on
News Channel 8:
 


Luncheon Logo
 

We were so proud and moved by the response to our Annual Community Luncheon in May, 2012. The audience of more than 425 was diverse, from every sector of the community.

Watch our staff (youth & adult) in action, with friend Denise Reese on guitar:  TimE to Grow song! 

This year, 27 current and former TE YOs contributed... writing and presenting speeches, hosting and running registration, and mingling at tables with judges, business people, and community leaders.  Youth speeches received standing ovations.  


Here is the powerful video shown at the event: 

Genesee Street Mural!

TE commissioned master artist Eder Muniz to work with   5 youth apprentices with close ties to the Southwest neighborhood to install a mural one block from            our storefront site.

The mural replaced a drab concrete wall to radiate a spirit  of hope and pride, spreading  the visual reach of community engagement down Genesee Street where neighbors and students who attend Wilson Commencement and Foundation Academies must walk past boarded-up and burnt-out houses, street fights, and    drug dealing every day.

TE surveyed nearly 100 youth in the neighborhood to develop the concept for the mural, which portrays people bringing what they have to offer to move community forward together. 

The mural was made possible by contributions from NYSCA, Arts & Cultural Council of Greater Rochester, The Synthesis Collaborative and McMannis Painting.

 
Watch this powerful performance by TE Associate Coordinator Shanterra Randle, whose poem is inscribed on the mural
 
 
 
Peace March 2012
This year, we marched in honor of Lawrence Richardson —our friend, colleague and mentor to next generation YOs—who was killed on April 9, 2012.  Our devastation transformed into hope led by youth, Lawrence's and other murder victims' families.

TE youth organizers created original chants and taught them to the marchers with the help of percussionist and performance artist Topher Holt. 


The voices and unbound energy of hundreds of youth and supportive adults drew an enthusiastic audience all along Jefferson Ave. and Flint St. with messages of unity and peace. 

 

1st-ever Southwest Neighborhood Youth Summit

The youth organizers used their first SW Neighborhood Youth Summit to challenge their peers to understand and approach “the game of life” in a new way—no longer playing into traps that get people stuck and fuel violence, and instead, building unity and power to get the resources and attention their community needs. 

The YOs collaboratively created a one-hour show that included an original play, monologues, spoken word, hip hop, speeches, and a video of Lawrence promoting his message of non-violence and steering away from retaliation.

 

Male-Female Dialogues

Consistently, thousands of Rochester youth in TE focus groups over the past 9 years had identified teen pregnancy and dysfunctional, and sometimes violent, “drama” in relationships between young women and men as barriers in their lives.  The past two years, 30 young men and women joined the youth organizers for the series—8 parallel sessions with males and females meeting separately and 5 sessions together—to examine and build understanding around issues that contribute to relationship drama that leads to street conflicts, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, absentee parents, etc. 

 

TE enlisted the support of “community elders” to participate in the sessions—six women and seven men—which brought the richness and community wholeness of a rite of passage, two of whom had been involved with TE as youth.  Watch youth talk about their experience here.


 

Archives of TE Rochester past...

 

Peace March poster

"IT'S TIME TO CHANGE THE GAME...PEACE!"

 
Thanks to all who came out to support the Southwest neighborhood's first Peace March & Celebration!
 
 
 
 
 


"It's TimE": TE Rochester's Inaugural Community Luncheon

TE's first annual community luncheon was a huge success, with more than 400 people attending.  Check out this amazing gift of poetry offered at the from TE Associate Coordinator Shanterra Randle. Then, read what one attendee has to say, and see this follow-up piece in the Democrat & Chronicle: "Empowering teens to shape their own lives."

See a preview of the event with Doug Ackley on YNN, and read another preview in the Democrat & Chronicle: "Luncheon will honor three for work with teens."

Harvard's Kennedy School recognizes TE Rochester's Youth-Police Unity Project as a Bright Idea

TE's Rochester program recently received recognition from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government FOR THE SECOND TIME! (2010 & 2012). The Youth-Police Unity Project was cited as innovative and a possible model for other communities.

Youth-Police Symposium

Real Talk Real Walk event flier


In May of 2010, TE Rochester organized a symposium to bring youth and police together for honest, thoughtful talk, leading to real change in police/youth relationships in the city. This event was the culmination of prior dialogue sessions between city youth and police. 

Check out TV coverage on YNN, newspaper coverage in the Democrat and Chronicle, and a RocNow guest essay by Sergeant Gary Moxley and TE Rochester director Doug Ackley.

Grand Opening at Our New Location!

Many thanks to everyone who helped make the October 15, 2010, Grand Opening of TE Rochester's first neighborhood-based site such a great success! Check out video preview of the opening on YNN TV. Here's WHEC's coverage of the opening. Read about it in the Democrat & Chronicle and check out some photos of the event.

A Sample Year in the Life of TE Rochester

Download a 6-page overview of Teen Empowerment in Rochester, including information about our work with the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council, the Youth-Police Unity Project, and more.

Building on 2008's standing-room-only Voice of the Youth Forum, the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council (MYAC) reported back to the community at a forum held on May 5, 2009. At this event, MYAC introduced its "Youth Priorities in Action" report.

 


TE Rochester Youth Conference 2008

Forty Rochester youth contributed to the hard-hitting relevance of TE's 5th annual Youth Conference and SpeakOut, held on November 8 and attended by between 500-600 youth.  This year’s theme, Breaking Generational Curses, engaged youth in examining the pressing issues that have brought harm —such as violence, substance abuse, police-youth distrust, school dropouts, and teen pregnancy—and in exploring ways to break negative cycles that hold back Rochester's low-income communities. The conference featured young people's original performances and speeches, youth-led small group "connection sessions," and a Youth Opportunities Fair highlighting 20+ organizations.  Mayor Bob Duffy and State Senator Joe Robach were on hand to show support for teens' efforts to empower themselves and advocate for policy changes that promote youth as assets who need help elevating the quality of life in the city.    

The conference was sponsored by the City of Rochester and Mayor Robert J. Duffy, the Rochester City School District, Wegmans, and WDKX. 

Mayor's Youth Advisory Council Hosts Forum at City Hall,
Writes Report on Youth Issues

Teen Empowerment coordinates and facilitates Rochester’s Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. In June 2008, the council organized a standing-room-only forum for youth at Rochester City Council chambers.  (Download speeches by young people delivered at the forum.) In August, as a follow-up to the forum, the youth council released a report entitled "Youth Priorities in Action." Read about the report and the Advisory Council in the Rochester City Newspaper. See it on R News.

To view the entire forum, which was filmed live, go to RNews On-Demand, Channel 108 on Time Warner Cable in Rochester.

Recognition for TE’s work in Rochester

Site History

In 2003, TE began to implement its adolescent intervention and prevention strategy in Rochester. In the fall of that year, TE staff interviewed more than 120 applicants and hired ten teens to organize Rochester's first citywide, youth-run conference. The conference, held March 6, 2004, engaged over 400 youth and adults in a daylong exploration of the relationship of youth violence to the lack of vocational, educational, and recreational services.

In the fall of 2004, the Rochester site interviewed more than 130 teens for jobs as youth organizers and launched a full-scale TE program, with the support of the Wilson Foundation and the Rochester Area Community Foundation. Since that time, TE youth organizers have organized numerous events, including four full-scale youth conferences, to involve their peers in confronting Rochester's serious problems with gangs,guns, and drugs. In addition, they have been working with police officers through the Youth-Police Unity Project, funded by the Andrus Family Fund. 

See RNews--"Teen forum at City Hall" for news coverage
about Teen Empowerment's Youth Forum at City Hall in
November 2005.

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