Youth Peace Conferences
BOSTON YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE 2008
Step Up to Change: From the Strand to the State House
TE's 16th annual Boston Youth Peace Conference is Saturday, May 10, 1:00-5:00, at the Strand Theater in Dorchester. This is an experience that you don't want to miss! Akrobatik and DJ Maverik are on the bill along with many powerful and talented Boston youth. Tickets are $3 at the door.
This year's conference will focus on the very different educational opportunities available to youth in the inner city compared to youth in the suburbs. Through theater, rap, poetry, speeches, and song, young people will highlight the issues they face and show the need for everyone--from every community and every racial group--to speak out for equality. TE will also show excerpts from the new video Voices from Behind the Wall, which features in-depth interviews with inmates at the Old Colony Correctional Facility in Bridgewater, MA, who will speak about their education, their long years in prison, and their messages for youth. Read about it in the Boston Globe and view an excerpt from the video, in which the man responsible for shooting little Kai Leigh Harriott in 2003 apologizes to her and her family.
Click here for directions to the Strand Theater.
The conference is sponsored by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Boston Teachers Union, Citizens for Public Schools, and UPN-TV38.
UNITY RALLY FOR CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND: Speak Out for Education
Following up the Peace Conference, TE is organizing an event at the State House in Boston on Wednesday, May 21, at 3:00 PM. Everyone who supports educational equality in Massachusetts is invited to join us at the Grand Staircase. More information
SOMERVILLE YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE 2008
Uniting the Ville: Real Stories, Real Change
More than 600 youth and adults came to the conference on Saturday, April 12, at Somerville High School. Read about it in The Somerville News, The Boston Globe, and the The Somerville Journal. Check back soon for photos.
The conference was hosted by Teen Empowerment, the City of Somerville, and Mayor Joseph Curtatone, and sponsored by The Somerville News, Somerville Public Schools, and the Somerville Police Department. Full list of partners (1-page download)
Back to Top
ROCHESTER YOUTH CONFERENCE AND SPEAKOUT 2007
RATED REAL 2: THE RESURRECTION OF HIP HOP
On Saturday, October 13, the 4th annual Youth Conference and SpeakOut in Rochester brought together hundreds of youth at Monroe High School to explore the impact of Hip Hop on youth culture. Participants 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.
Read about it in the Democrat & Chronicle and link to video from the event from that page. Watch the coverage on R News. For more information, call 585-697-3464 or email the program director.
More photos
BOSTON YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE 2007
Teen Empowerment's 15th annual Boston Youth Peace Conference, One Moment, One Mind, For Change, 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!
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.
More photos of the 2007 Boston conference
To get a flavor of the Boston Peace Conference, scroll down for links to videos from the 2006 conference.
The Peace Conference was part of Peace Month in Boston. Download a list of Peace Month partners (one page).
SOMERVILLE YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE 2007
TE's 1st annual Somerville Youth Peace Conference, Filling the Streets with the Pieces of Peace, 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. More photos
Back to Top
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 a video clip of the Peace Conference, click the Play button on the viewing screen. (Or to play in Quicktime, click the Quicktime link. A new viewing screen will open.) | |
Aaron Wornum Taking Responsibility Quicktime version | More Peace Conference videos See more clips of the plays, poems, songs, dances, and speeches from the Peace Conference. |
See photos of the 2006 Boston Peace Conference.
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
YOUTH PEACE CONFERENCE HISTORY
Boston neighborhoods in 1993 were engulfed by an epidemic of gang violence. Almost every day a young person was shot or killed by another youth. In response to these tragic and painful events, the youth of Teen Empowerment organized the first Youth Peace Conference. That conference, held May 5, 1993, attracted more than 250 teens from rival factions, produced a lasting peace treaty among five gangs, and set the stage for the dramatic decline in gang and youth violence that followed over the next several years.
Teen Empowerment has held the Youth Peace Conference annually since then in Boston, bringing together hundreds of teens to build relationships, explore important issues such as education, jobs, crime, and police-youth relations, and celebrate the power of youth to take action for positive change. TE's youth conference in Rochester has been organized annually since 2004, and our Somerville site held its first conference in 2007.
Segments of Boston Peace Conference shows are available on DVD.
Back to Top