The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Teen summit provides wealth of ideas
PUBLISHED: April 3, 2008
Katie Mercer of Community High School in Ann Arbor, Kyndall McCoy of Benton Harbor High School and I, Brie Prusak, of Milan High School, attended the national 2008 Young Leaders Summit March 27, 28 and 29 in Washington, D.C.
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The summit attracted Planned Parenthood's teenage peer educators from across the country. Although thousands applied, only about 50 people were chosen and only three were selected from mid- and southern Michigan.
The summit was coordinated by University of Michigan alumnae Christina Hollenbeck. The idea was started last year in Los Angeles, but there were only about 20 teenagers who attended the first summit, and there wasn't nearly as much information given out to the teens who were there.
At this year's summit, we were taught about advocacy, outreach, media training, lobbying and other community outreach techniques to bring back to our own peer education groups.
While this was great information, the most important thing that we all brought back from the summit was all of the other teens' ideas and experiences. Most of the information came from simply talking to other teens at the summit, but we also learned a great deal of information from presentations that each group had to make and present during our first full day in Washington, D.C.
The main purpose of the summit was to come up with new ideas and ways to get the peer education message out across the country. The fact that there were teens from all over the country involved with this group will help to represent the ideas nationwide.
We will implement the ideas at the same time within the year. This will help to clearly present the message of promoting sound teenage decisions such as healthy relationships and decision-making.
The people who attended also will keep in touch with each other to coordinate and implement the ideas discussed at the summit. These ideas deal with community outreach, media and online resources.
Three groups will hold a teleconference every other month, and on the off months, all three groups will combine in a teleconference.
Some ideas to look out for are online zines, which are self-published, small circulation, non-commercial booklet or magazine, usually produced by one person or a few individuals, Facebook groups, as well as community events.
The three people who participated from Michigan will be continuing to update a blog, mipeereds.blogspot.com, during the next 12 months.
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