Youths address drugs and leadership at conference
March 19, 2009
By Laura Geggel
Four youths crowded around a table to discuss the word “community.” Earlier that morning, they had joined 60 Eastside middle and high school students at Twin Falls Middle School for leadership and icebreaker games. They noticed groups of students formed during these games excluded some people from the activity.
Why did both communities, both large and small, reject people, they wondered.
“Why is it that communities want to have someone on the outside?” asked Cedarcrest sophomore Josh Denison. “Why can’t everybody belong?”
The students brainstormed about communities, agreeing that open and accepting communities would be ideal. After scrawling a few bullet points on butcher paper, the group presented their conclusions to their peers at the Youth Leadership Initiative Conference.
This was the first conference of its kind in the Snoqualmie Valley. The idea sparked in July, when Snoqualmie Valley Community Network Executive Director Kristy Sullivan traveled with Cedarcrest High School students to the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America in Palm Springs. It was there they saw the energetic speaker Nigel Wrangham, a youth leadership trainer and drug prevention counselor.
Sullivan asked Wrangham to bring his youth leadership skills to the Snoqualmie Valley and set the date for March 14. It may have been raining dismal sheets of rain outside, but the students’ talk of leadership electrified Twin Falls with a positive atmosphere.
“It’s so incredible to see these young adults express their ideas and be so articulate,” said Sue Henrickson, who accompanied her sixth-grade Tolt Middle School daughter to the conference.
Wrangham said students were leaders in their own right. He said he hoped the conference attendees will implement their leadership skills when interacting with classmates both on and off school campuses.
Another student group examined the question, “What do you think is missing in your community? How can you fix it?”
The five students decided open-mindedness was missing from the Valley.
“Get adults to understand where youth come from,” they wrote on their poster.
The youth said they were tired of minors who use drugs and alcohol from facing little or no consequences for their actions.
“I had a class where I sat by a few druggies,” Cedarcrest freshman Tia Smith said. “The teacher would stand by and say, ‘Don’t talk about it,’ but it didn’t do anything.”
They concluded that youth need support from their community and peers when encouraging activities unrelated to alcohol or substance use. Adults need to understand that, Smith said.
Mount Si student Dannah Parsons said adults would make a positive impact if they put as much energy into preventing drug use as they did into protesting Mount Si High School’s Day of Silence.
Another group with the same question said both a teenage health center and a teenage-friendly socializing spot were missing from their community.
At the end of the day, students reflected on their day and drew pictures of ideas they would take away with them.
Mount Si senior Danielle Fulfs drew a person standing next to a large group.
“One person really can make a difference if they go about it the right way,” Fulfs said.
Her classmate, Kelly Besmer agreed.
“As a Mount Si person, it’s great to see people here like me,” Besmer said. “I think it’s really empowering to be told we can do this.”
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