Meadowview conference sets stage to "change the view"

by Shuntae Campbell
Youth Organizer
Sacramento ACT Meadowview Partnership

The Meadowview community is a place where many youth have experienced an increase in youth issues. Statistically, the Meadowview community is deemed to be a “bad” neighborhood. Sacramento Area Congregations Together took notice of this, thus, creating the ACT Meadowview Partnership.

The ACT Meadowview Partnership is made up of many congregations and youth leaders in the South Sacramento area. As a group, we decided that it would be best to host a Meadowview Youth Leadership Conference. The conference would be a two-day event. Our primary objective was to instill into the youth that they could take a leadership role in creating change in their community. This was a broader goal to change the view. We wanted the youth to realize that they did not have to settle with how things are.

While planning the Meadowview Youth Leadership Conference, our main focus was to empower the youth of Meadowview. We began to meet on a regular basis to plan our 1st Annual Meadowview Youth Leadership Conference. Though our planning process was consistent, it was not an easy one. Our meetings were held at the Sam Pannell Meadowview Community Center every Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The planning committee was made up of both youth and adults. In our planning group, as well as in our organization, we believe strongly in youth and adult partnerships. We had two main goals. The first goal was to turn out 300 youth within the Meadowview area. Our second goal was to make sure that our workshops were built around empowerment and leadership. We started our planning back in October, and we had until April 25 and 26 to make things happen.

On the day of the event, you could feel the nervous vibe floating around the Sam Pannell Community Center. We were all anxious to see how our hard work would pay off. The first day of the event was filled with testimonies and talent showcases. Our setup was beautiful. We wanted to make sure that we were entertaining the youth, as well as teaching them. We did a good job of doing both tasks. We had more than 300 youth who attended on the first day of the event. According to the evaluations that the youth completed, the testimonies were inspiring and the talent show was fun. Many youth felt that the first day was something they had never seen and were anxious to see what the next day would bring.

On the last day of the event, all of the workshops were held. We also had two keynote speakers. Our first keynote speaker was the mayoral candidate, Kevin Johnson. He spoke primarily about the importance of education. He did a great job of getting the youth involved, and getting them to realize just how important education really is. Our second keynote speaker was Ms. Hmong International, Mercedes Ly. She was phenomenal. She was only 18 years old and she won the competition to become Ms. Hmong International. The thing that caught everyone’s eye is that she was from the Meadowview area. She was a walking example of what we were trying to get across to these youth. She spoke about how making a change for your community is important, and how youth shouldn’t settle for the statistics that people place on them. They should take a stand and begin to do what’s right.

The second half of the day was filled with workshops. Some of the workshop topics were jobs, gang involvement, abstinence, the rights of youth and college access. Many youth loved every workshop, but the workshop that was most talked about was the job skills workshop. This was a great interest to many youth, and they felt this particular workshop captured the things that they were not aware of. Our goal of making sure our workshops empowered the youth was fulfilled.

At the end of the event, youth felt the conference was the most real event they have ever been to. They mentioned they have never been to anything like it and were anxious to see what next year’s conference would bring. Overall, we set a foundation to change the Meadowview community.

The Sacramento ACT Meadowview Partnership is a REACH Community Action coalition.