Youth Empowerment Summit Lives Up to Its Name
In late August, Principia School took 10 students to the University of Missouri-St. Louis to participate in a Youth Empowerment Summit called YES. The Principia group joined students from many other high schools, public and private, to learn more about leadership and to take on real-world challenges in an effort to solve them.
In the first session, students learned about conflict resolution, strengths-based leadership, and problem-solving. Then, in the afternoon, they tackled one of the challenges in St. Louis, such as law enforcement, diversity and inclusion, equity, and access to education. Students met in cohorts according to their topic and later presented recommendations to panel members, including several councilmen and councilwomen, a captain from the St. Louis Police Department, and Ferguson’s assistant chief of police.
Upper School Dean of Students Melanie Duffy noted the Principia students’ high level of engagement: “Our students participated with enthusiasm, energy, and grace. Their desire to be change agents was evident!”
From the students’ perspective, attending YES provided a number of benefits: finding fellowship, feeling less overwhelmed by the problems to be addressed, and discovering how a common desire to help others bridges differences. Junior Dylan Ouderkirk (pictured above on the far right) experienced all of these benefits. Here’s how she describes attending YES:
When I first heard about the opportunity to go and discuss the problems in today’s world, it felt overwhelming. How could high schoolers make any difference? Still, I thought I should give it a chance. There were way more people than I thought would be there. And they weren’t the type of people I had expected. They weren’t all the straight-A students who were coming to get brownie points or because their parents forced them to. I walked into the room to see people of all different statuses and personalities.
When we broke out into separate groups for the last activity, we had about 10 people seated around this big, round table. At first, we went around and said our names and then shared our ideas as we had been instructed to do. But by the end, we were chatting and talking about school and clothes and everything in between. It was awe-inspiring to see how fast we could become closer despite differences. The problems also seemed less daunting as we chipped away at them slowly and broke down the solution into manageable steps.
Overall, the greatest takeaway was the sense of community and love I felt. After just recently coming to Prin as a boarder and staying within the close-knit Prin community, it was intriguing to be able to branch out and meet the people that make up St. Louis.