Youth "Changing the View" at Meadowview Conference

by Isaiah Saucier and Sebastian Harton
Meadowview Partnership members

Our 2nd Annual Meadowview Youth Leadership Conference was about getting youth to have voices in the community and make change. We felt that we could start with the youth because adults could see what is going on with us, see that we are trying to make positive changes and then adults will follow our lead. We wanted to reach out to a broader population of youth because we know we are not the only ones trying to stop negative things that happen in each others’ communities.

The conference was a great success and we had a blast. We were able to get the crowd hyped and everybody having fun. We did an activity called “The Dream Activity,” where they would answer the question, “What steps would it take to become the dream,” and then tape the answers to the wall. Some youth said they wanted to become a leader and wanted to do what we are doing. Now that we have their responses it will help us make change for them so they are able to achieve their dream. We did another activity called “Principles of Leadership” and participants came up with chants and skits to go along with their principles. We got good feedback from the youth, and some of them want to help plan the conference for next year.

This was our first experience to ever MC anything like that and we had a lot of fun with all the youth and everything we did, such as the workshops, food, talent show, dancing and everything. We are looking forward to doing it again next year.

The ACT Meadowview Partnership is a REACH Community Action coalition.