2,900 People Attend The 16th Annual National Service-Learning Conference

On the afternoon of Thursday, March 17, 2005, the Exhibit Hall at the Long Beach (Calif.) Convention Center was swarmed with service-learning enthusiasts from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 49 other countries. Fifty-three exhibitors discussed their organizations and services, California fare — from seafood to Asian cuisine — was served, and visitors viewed presentations of 50 regional service projects, 10 HIV/AIDS prevention projects, and 10 Project Ignition driver-safety campaigns. Later, guests were entertained by the Brazilian youth theater troupe Transformarte and got down to the hip-hop sounds of California's Justice Leeg.

This was the official welcome celebration for The 16th Annual National Service Learning Conference™: Educating for Change, which took place March 16-19, and drew an estimated 2,900 attendees.

Attendees were able to choose from a seemingly endless menu of events, including some 400 workshops and roundtables. Keynote speeches by Erin Gruwell, founder of the Freedom Writers project, and Mawi Asgedom (pictured), an Ethiopian refugee who earned a scholarship to Harvard and later started his own company, demonstrated the power young people have to change the world and the responsibility of adults to support and guide them as they do so. Dr. Howard Gardner, in his keynote address, discussed his recent research into how young people in the work place "use intelligence, creativity, and leadership, in ways that are moral and pro-social."

NYLC and State Farm® also culminated the first year of Project Ignition, a national service-learning competition to encourage safe driving among teenagers. The projects of the 10 finalist schools were on display, and when the day was done, Mooresville (Ind.) High School's project, In a Flash, was named Best in Show, earning the school a grant from State Farm.

The conference also featured 19 service projects, allowing participants to get their hands dirty and help others. Among the highlights were opportunities to create welcome baskets for children in foster facilities, help reforest the L.A. area, and clean out invasive species at a nearby wetlands. As an extra bonus, California First Lady Maria Shriver and her daughter stopped by Friday morning to help create school-supply baskets for a local Head Start program.

More than anything else, the conference was a setting where diverse groups exchanged ideas and learned from each other. In the Global Learning Lab, a series of international presenters and workshops addressed issues of global concern. The Gathering of Elders brought a panel of elders from different cultural backgrounds together to share their wisdom and celebrate NYLC's publication of "Wisdom Teachings: Lessons Learned from Gatherings of Elders." The Third Annual Indigenous Service Featured Forum — hosted by Leonard Little Finger, a member of the Mniconjou and Oglala Lakota Nation — provided opportunities to highlight, honor, and learn from indigenous service-learning practitioners. And the Third Annual HIV/AIDS Best Practices Featured Forum convened a diverse group of youths and adults to lend their expertise to NYLC's Y-RISE: The Service-Learning and HIV/AIDS Initiative.

"The increased international participation and the greater involvement of indigenous peoples made this a very special conference for all of us," says NYLC President and CEO Jim Kielsmeier. "It was especially exciting to see 50 foreign exchange students representing 21 countries, who were sponsored by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Youth Service America. Cultural and geographic diversity has long been a goal of The National Service-Learning Conference, but that doesn't happen overnight. It requires the building of relationships, and we saw years of nurturing those relationships pay off and truly enrich the event for all attendees."

The 17th Annual National Service-Learning Conference: We the People, will be held March 22-25, 2006, in Philadelphia.

Photo of Mawi Asgedom by Bryan Thao Worra. © 2005 National Youth Leadership Council.