Blog Archives: April 2012

The second day of Our World, Our Future featured a plenary address from Geoffrey Canada, a full day of workshops, and two off-site service-learning projects. 

The plenary address began with Jeron Meriani, a youthrive Board of Directors member, speaking about his experiences with bullying and how he found ways to cope by discovering healthy outlets. Youth emcees Hunter Mullis and Jill Farina introduced Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, Inc. Canada, nationally recognized for his pioneering work helping children and a passionate advocate for education reform, spoke about his role models, meeting President Clinton shortly after the creation of AmeriCorps, and seizing the moment in your own life.

"Everybody gets their moment; you can't tell when you're moment will come," said Canada. "Will you be ready?" Canada concluded his remarks with a recitation of his poem, "Take A Stand."

Later in the afternoon, conference participants had the opportunity to attend one of two different off-site projects; EcoEducation's Toxic Tour, or Service-Learning in Saint Paul at the Open World Learning Community school. On the tour, participants visited toxic sites in the Twin Cities while exploring environmental racism, justice, land use, and how these issues affect youth. At the Open World Learning Community school, participants helped pack nutritious meals in the school's OWL Against Hunger project in conjunction with ImpactLives, a Minnesota-based nonprofit. 

Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate, also led a Thought Leader session and will be featured at a public address tomorrow, Friday, April 13 at 4:30 p.m. at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Tickets to this address are open to the public for $10. Contact the Minneapolis Convention Center for more information.

Photos: (top) Geoffrey Canada addressed Our World, Our Future conference attendees during his plenary speech; (bottom) Conference attendees created food kits during an off-site service-learning project at the Open World Learning Community school in Saint Paul.

This week, thousands of youth in Minnesota will be joining the millions around the world in kicking-off Global Youth Service Day April 14th! This week, thousands of youth in Minnesota will be joining the millions around the world in kicking-off Global Youth Service Day on Saturday, April 14th! Planning teams have been finishing up final details to support the largest service event in world. After attending the National Service-Learning Conference youthrive PeaceJam Leadership Conference  in Minneapolis and serving in the Frogtown community in Saint Paul, it will be time to celebrate and kick-off Global Youth Service Day!

The Minnesota Alliance With Youth will be hosting the GYSD Celebration event at the Mall of America from 3-6:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 14th. As the culmination of the conference, “Serve and Celebrate” on Saturday will allow attendees from across the country to experience the lead agency’s Celebration event.

In addition, an exciting partnership with the Minnesota Alliance With Youth and Twin Cities Public Television (TPT), in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Education, has supported the production of a “for youth, by youth” messaging campaign focused on the messages youth receive on staying in school and youth engagement. This initiative, “One Voice,” will be launched at GYSD. Throughout the event, the youth-created messaging campaign will be displayed in series of video messages.

Other highlights include: hip hop and spoken word performances, dance and step groups, Native Drumming, and more – you won’t want to miss this entertainment representing a global Minnesota! Off the stage, participants will support and engage in on-site service projects, supporting local organizations and highlighting issues of concern for youth.

To ensure this celebration event is a success, the Alliance depends on the support of dedicated local and national partners. Youth Service America and Delta Dental of Minnesota will again be serving as key partners this year. Delta Dental of Minnesota is the largest provider of dental benefits in the Upper Midwest with 3.4 million members nationwide. In support of Global Youth Service Day, Delta Dental of Minnesota has sponsored its 9th annual Serve A Smile mini-grants program, distributing more than $30,000 in mini-grants and in-kind supplies to support over 40 youth-led service projects in Minnesota. One recipient, the Northwest Youth and Family Services (NYFS) STEP program, will host a Healthy STEP Community Health & Wellness Fair. “Healthy STEP” is an annual community health and wellness fair which will be coordinated by students of the STEP program and community resources held on Saturday, April 21st, 2012 from 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. in the Discovery Center at Northwest Youth & Family Services.  Healthy STEP will provide the communities of the Northern Suburbs the opportunity to interact with health professionals including dentists, nurses, and police officers regarding oral health, nutrition, exercise and the importance of staying off of drugs.

2012 marks the 10th anniversary of the annual Indigenous Service Forum (ISF) within the National Service-Learning Conference. Both the conference and forum return to Mni’sota (the Dakota word for smoky or hazy water) in April of 2012. Like many endeavors that seek to address issues of social justice, equity and accessibility for people of color, primarily indigenous youth and communities, the vision and efforts needed to turn the ISF into an annual conference offering had its anticipated growing pains that were also tempered by success.

The ISF came about as a means by which to explore how service-learning could assist in creating a proper and respectful environment in which to more effectively utilize original indigenous thought and philosophy for the benefit of indigenous communities. Research, personal experience/knowledge and calculated projections inform us that a critical stage in how to effectively tackle educational challenges for indigenous peoples has been reached, but still awaits that vehicle of change.

It is therefore time that indigenous communities and the field of service-learning draw more than parallels around the basis of service as a virtue shared by both but often only in theory. However, as indigenous people can attest, there remains the very serious issue of improper appropriation and exploitation of sought after indigenous teachings. It is no secret that indigenous communities that have shared their respective lessons and protected information with non-members/organizations/universities, etc. often find that their presence and value diminish once knowledge or teachings were given out in the spirit of mutual benefit.

The ISF has always existed as a vehicle in which indigenous youth and educators who themselves are practitioners of service in their own right, are given proper power and presence in which to safely share their teachings in ways that are respectful to themselves and their communities. Ground rules and expectations can be set by the indigenous featured presenters to ensure that risk of exploitation is therefore minimized. Attendees may also learn proper etiquette and understand what improper appropriation looks like so that they can recognize those traits when choosing to work with indigenous communities or indigenous youth.

In this 10th anniversary year for the ISF we celebrate the powerful presence of so many indigenous service-learning educators that have graced the conference and forum with their insight. The tribal / indigenous nations represented have spanned the Plains of South Dakota with the Lakota, the northern woodlands of Mni’sota with the Ojibwe, to the southwest with our Navajo and Apache relatives. Indigenous is an encompassing title with more of our relatives from El Salvador to Puerto Rico and from east to west with our Chickasaw, Choctaw and Paiute making their presence known. Additionally our Dutch, German, Laplander and African brothers and sisters have also represented. The Native Hawaiian presence was a powerful sister. A powerful Chicano brother also came to us from the Rockies.

The participation of so many indigenous youth and educators over the years has given rise to the ISF and thus proving that it has not been sustained by any one person or their individual vision, but has matured and gathered strength from the collective visions and original teachings of the indigenous peoples who still remain physically and spiritually attached to their lands and whom chose to serve as featured presenters. It has been their non-political, lack of personal promotion, and indigenous spirit of service that has made the Indigenous Service Forum into the success that it remains to this day.

While there is much work and mutual respect to establish between those indigenous people who truly practice indigenous virtues of service, and those who wish to work with these same communities and people, these past 10 years represent a strong, positive step forward in the creation of mutual work across human created boundaries and obstacles. Most importantly, this decade of interaction and networking has laid the groundwork for the establishment of an Indigenous Service Network that will eventually represent the next step in the evolution of the Indigenous Service Forum.