2015 MLK Youth Leadership Academy Hosted by @CwpFairfield @FairfieldU. We Gotta Write! Aright?

For the 2nd year, the MLK Committee at Fairfield University has asked CWP-Fairfield to host the Youth Leadership Academy for 8th grade youth in Bridgeport and New Haven. This year, 82 young people came to campus to celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King and to partner with Fairfield University Athletics to pay respect to mentors, coaches, friends, parents, and teachers who help them to carry forth their dreams to achieve.

Writing Our Lives - 2015

Unique to the program, too, was a Skype call from Mark Crandall, who spoke to the young people about Nelson Mandela, his programming in S. Africa, his dreams and visions for youth worldwide, and the skills necessary for 21st century achievement.

Wylie Blake and Kris Sealey, chairs of the committee, staged a phenomenal week and CWP-Fairfield was glad to be a part of it.Throughout the day, several athletes from sports programs at Fairfield University stopped by the Oak Room and discussed what it has taken for them to achieve and who it was that most influenced their success. Additionally, Diva Attallah Sheppard did her poetic thang and Dr. Yohuru Williams gave an awesome speech about Selma and youth activism.

My role was to see 82 essays carried forth for the Literacy4Life competition and to be an emcee. Well, I also was given the freedom to design the program. As the young people learned the wisdom of my colleagues and friends, I interceded with writing lessons and helped them to see new ways to compose and develop their thinking (and we used Abu and Lossine Bility's essays to help us to think even further).

One of the activities I did was to write a 1st sentence, a hook, for several individuals who have had an impact on me. The middle school students were allowed to vote and I only shared the story of the one sentence that intrigued them most. After, I assigned them to write their own sentence to hook me for the person they wanted to nominate as the most influential, an activity that followed brainstorming and free writing). Here are my sentences:

• “If you have one good friend in life,” he told me in the garage that day smoking a Lucky Strike, “Then you’re a lucky man. Most men never experience a true friend.”
• “She taught me to color my world with creativity and imagination; of course, she also humiliated me with 70-year old skinny dipping and shoplifting.”
• “When they came to the United States, they told me there were three things that were most important to them: (1) education, (2) education, and (3) education.”
• “In order to act globally, you must first take the steps to know who you are locally; you must unravel complicated history and be critical of the truths you’re told.”
• “There’s no learning outside a relationship - the best teachers are those who build relationships with students and guide them throughout their lives.”
• “Before meeting the Rooster, this Frog never knew the importance of cockle-doodle-doing his way through life or looking to THE GREAT WHATEVER for answers on his pond”
• “Find what you love to do, be good at what you do, be happy about it, and do something with it to give back to the world.”
• “He taught me about UBUNTU, the S. African philosophy that translates, “I can be me because of who we are together,” and since then my life has brought me the universe.”

The kids chose the 7th bullet and the story they wanted to here more about. They chose it almost unanimously and so I began sharing the background for where it came from. Interestingly, it was Chitunga's advice that he wanted me to give to others when I asked him (he had no clue what I was up to) what he would have to say if given the chance. So, 

I then told them the story of why Chitunga is in my world. 

The goal for the exercise was to have all the 8th graders write letters of nomination for outstanding mentors who have made a difference in their lives. This, we discussed, can be in relation to integrity, focus, sense of humor, self-esteem, self-awareness, responsibility and Ubuntu. I know I am a mentor to Chitunga, but each and every day he is a teacher for me, too.

The day was a great success and I am thankful to all who helped make it possible. In a dream world, there'd be enough support to assure that all 82 of these kids would be given the tools necessary to make it to the next level of their lives. I'm not sure if a fly-by-the-day workshop is enough, but I'm hoping it caused some ripples in the waves (similar to the way Chitunga's butterfly effect has influenced me).

YOU GOTTA WRITE! A'IGHT?