WE COUNT: YOUth Summit

On Saturday, March 9, Zone 126 held its second annual Youth Summit at the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens. The event drew almost 80 students out for a half-day event where youth were included this year in the planning process. The theme for this year’s summit was WE COUNT, with an emphasis on wellness and planning for the future. Some of the day’s activities consisted of, resume building, planning for a transition post high school, the importance of voting, and gender norms, to name a few. Several students from Long Island City High School helped to plan this year’s summit, and design workshops aimed to give youth the opportunity to safely express their thoughts and feelings about identity in this day and age. The student facilitators and student attendees were excited to come together to discuss this topic, because they lack the spaces needed to have these type of discussions. Anahi, one of the student facilitators said “I really enjoyed being able to co-facilitate the debate workshop. I had fun hearing the various opinions and seeing everyone have a fun time.” We want to give a special thank you to our partners who helped make the day a huge success: City Harvest, Community Word Project, Global Kids, Let’s Get Ready, and our amazing Facilitators/Community Volunteers: Cormac Nataro and Jose Dobles.