Peace, Purpose, and Progress

Youth Symposium

We want to bring peace to our communities, especially our youth because they are our future. This symposium aims to equip, educate, and empower our youth to make a change to better their community and their life. Progress comes from change and change comes from changing the way you think.

For youth to want to make a change, they have to understand that real progress comes with dedicated perseverance but also by realizing that challenges, obstacles, and roadblocks will appear from time to time. It's how you address those that make the difference.

Topics Addressed

Mental Health Awareness

Mental health awareness is the ongoing effort to reduce the stigma around mental illness and mental health conditions by sharing our personal experiences. Often, because of misconceptions about mental health and mental fitness, people often suffer in silence and their conditions go untreated.

We want to reduce the stigma of getting help so that mental health becomes a part of everyday life.

The Opioid Epidemic

The opioid epidemic can be broken down into three categories: prescription opioids (OxyContin), heroin, and synthetic opioids (Fentanyl).

We are going to inform, educate, and equip our youth to identify dangerous situations and what to do if they find themselves in unsafe circumstances.

Bullying

Bullying takes on several forms including physical, verbal, social, and cyberbullying. Bullying can happen to anyone, anywhere, and at any time.

We are going to educate individuals on how to be part of the solution, not the problem.

Dating Violence

There are three types of dating violence among our youth. Dating violence (DV) refers to intimate partner violence between two people in a close relationship whose nature can be economic, physical, sexual, stalking, and psychological aggression.

We want to educate our youth on what is acceptable, how to say no, how to respond if it happens to them, and how to help someone else in need.

Building Boundaries

There are many different types of boundaries that we can set for ourselves, including: physical, time, conversational, relationship, and personal.

We are going to examine how to set these boundaries for our personal well-being.

Self-Worth & Self-Esteem

Self-esteem and self-worth are related, but they have important differences. Self-esteem describes how you think and feel about yourself, which changes based on mood, circumstance, performance, or the approval of others.

Self-worth is a more global and stable form of self-esteem that comes from knowing and believing in your worth as a person. Instead of focusing on specific traits, skills, circumstances, or achievements, self-worth describes the core beliefs you have about your worth and value. Core beliefs tend to be consistent over time, which is why self-worth is less likely to change in response to feelings, thoughts, behaviors, or experiences.

We are going to discuss the importance of looking for validation outside yourself, being kinder to yourself, how to separate who you are from what you do, how to stop competing or comparing yourself with others, and how to develop a positive mindset.