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NextGen Youth Learn, Write, Listen, Share, Act, Love, and Dance across Difference

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May 31, 2023 by Tom McKenna

Here are a few of the school year’s events and highlights from the BLTN’s youth leadership network, BLTN NextGen. To keep up to date on NextGen events and community action work during the school year, be sure to sign up to receive the monthly BLTN Newsletter. NextGen Cross-site travel and local programming have been funded by the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation.

La Casa Roja and Navajo Conflict Transformation

La Casa Roja, the Navajo Nation NextGen site, hosted a workshop October 7 and 8 with the non-adversarial Navajo Peacemaking Project as a centerpiece of discussion about conflict transformation strategies from a Navajo perspective. The two days at Diné College included a series of presentations by Navajo organizers, scholars, and healers; presentations from NextGen South Carolina, NextGen La Casa Roja, and Yaneris Collado; writing and discussion on the subject of peacemaking; a tour of Canyon de Chelley; and a group dinner.

Some “golden lines” from participants’ closing reflections:

Listening is important to conflict transformation. 

I learned storytelling is medicine.  It helps the storyteller release and listeners learn from others’ experiences.

I learned to listen with my eyes and my ears. 

I learned to appreciate where I come from, but also acknowledge the beauty in our differences.

Peace feels the same for all of us, we may just be accustomed to getting to that feeling in different ways.

Connect to the humanity of each person no matter how different they/you may feel.

Nothing can be solved constructively without language and discussion.

Balance in the self helps to balance the world.

Ya’at’eeh

Rising Together with Andover Bread Loaf in Lawrence

Excerpts from a report by Lou Bernieri, Andover Bread Loaf Director

ABL Winter Conference and NextGen Visit Report 

On Friday, November 4 and Saturday, November 5, ABL hosted a conference of Middlebury’s NextGen Network, a national network of activist youth and their mentors from under-resourced communities around the country.  Originally funded by the Ford Foundation, NextGen is now supported by Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf Teacher Network. 

On Friday, NextGen youth visited members of the ABL Lawrence Collective, including the Lawrence History Center, Lawrence Heritage State Park, and El Taller Bookstore and Cafe.  They also met with ABL Writing Leaders to discuss youth activism, create partnerships, and form friendships.  NextGen visitors included two youth and one adult mentor from the Navajo Nation, the Santa Fe Indian School, Louisville, Atlanta, and Aiken, SC.  Also included were two youth and a mentor from ABL Puerto Rico and several Writing Leaders from Lawrence. 

On Friday evening at the Phillips Academy Log Cabin, ABL hosted a dinner and meeting for the NextGen youth and mentors, ABL Writing Leaders, and Lawrence teachers and community organization staff.  It was an evening filled with love and joy. 

On Saturday morning, November 5th, at the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence (another ABL partner), ABL Writing Leaders gave a workshop for the Next Gen youth focused on the best practices that the Writing Leaders employ in their work in the schools and organizations of Lawrence. At the same time, ABL offered the adult mentors a workshop focused on ways of supporting youth activism and agency. 

On Saturday from 11-4, the 20 Next Gen youth and mentors joined 40 Lawrence 7-12 graders in ABL’s annual fall conference at the Boys and Girls Club. The conference, titled “Rising Together,” was organized and run by ABL Writing Leaders who were supported and guided by BGCL and ABL staff. The conference opened with a guest artist, the brilliant poet and teacher Febo, who read his own poems, offered writing prompts to participants, talked about the process of writing and performing poetry, and invited people to the mic to share their work. After Febo, participants joined one of four writing and arts workshops given by ABL Writing Leaders. These workshops offered more opportunities for writing, creating art, collaboration, and sharing. 

The conference culminated with an open mic and exhibition, where numerous participants came to the mic to read their writing and share their art.  It ended a day of laughter and tears, writing and sharing, idealism and activism, and friendship and love. 

On Saturday evening, NextGen youth and mentors joined ABL Writing Leaders and ABL staff at El Taller Bookstore and Café for dinner, reflection, and planning for future conferences and collaborations. 

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

The NextGen Youth Advisory Board convened 25 youth and adults on Feb. 18 for a network-wide virtual gathering to recenter participants on the relationships between how and what we love, and our desires to improve our communities. Participants wrote and shared about creating art for people, food and family, gift giving, special holidays, hand written letters, sacrifices, acts of concern for others, “being there” for one another, and a host of other topics. BLTN Director Emerita Dixie Goswami spoke about the evolution of NextGen sites becoming “loving resources” for their communities. Youth Advisors chose the theme “What’s Love Got to Do with It” as a way of recognizing February as “the month of love.”

Affiliate Sites

We welcome new affiliate sites from Chelsea, MA (Site Mentor, Yaneris Collado (MA ’21), Youth Advisor Richard Murcia); Philadelphia, PA (Site Mentor Monica Rowley, Youth Advisors Hager Alsekaf and Ayona Kuriakose ); and Henrico, VA (Site Mentor Colin Baumgartner, Youth Advisors Menna Dawelbeit and Tien Hoang). 

Location of NextGen sites

NextGen Youth Share (and Dance) across Difference

“Cultural difference was very big here, from how we danced to how we talked. It was all different but because of that I felt we could connect and learn about one another.” One youth member of the Bread Loaf Teacher Network (BLTN)’s Next Generation Leadership Network beautifully summed up a March 2023 gathering of the ten-site network in Aiken, South Carolina. The gathering, partially underwritten by Conflict Transformation funds, brought four sites of the national network together for a long weekend focused on team building, cross-cultural and cross-generational understanding, and the sharing of strategy for local social action. 

Aiken youth hosted guests from the Navajo Nation, Santa Fe Indian School and Louisville, Kentucky.  The weekend began with cooperative team-building challenges (including low and high ropes courses), moved to community-based writing activities, a visit to the Center for African American History, Art and Culture, collaborative art activities, an evening with an activist guest speaker, and a culminating activity where youth learned about unique and not-so-unique social conflicts in each locale. Each night’s campfire turned into an impromptu dance party, where young people made sure joy was an integral part of the weekend’s agenda. Reflections on the event underscore BLTN’s commitment to learning across difference as part of Conflict Transformation. “There is a whole world of culture that I wasn’t aware of,” wrote one youth. Another remarked, “We shared conflicts and we all learned something new about each site. This definitely opened more doors to opportunities to help each other across sites.” 

What’s the Story? The Vermont Filmmakers Social Action Team to Hold Film Festival

What’s the Story? The Young Filmmakers Social Action Team will conclude its eighth year of the program when this year’s participants convene in Burlington, Vermont, in June for a two-day series of workshops and a film showcase. Youth filmmakers from NextGen sites Santa Fe Indian School, Louisville, South Carolina, and Vermont, along with youth participants from Wyoming, will co-lead workshops with adult partners around storytelling, team building, and positively impacting their communities. The retreat will also include this year’s youth participants premiering films they have created during this past year through their involvement with our program. Film topics include Black Excellence, Protecting LGBTQIA+ Youth, Confronting the Male Gaze, Newcomers’ Journeys from Afghanistan, and Improving Mental Health. Their films will be available on this YouTube Playlist after their Film Showcase on June 17th. If you are in the Burlington area and would like to join our afternoon Film Showcase on Saturday, June 17th, we’d love to have you join; please reach out to us for more information at whatsthestoryvt@gmail.com. – Tim O’Leary, What’s the Story Director


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