July 12, 2017, Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville area youth who are a part of the Mayor’s Summer Works Program, working at the Louisville Central Community Center (LCCC), are planning a Youth Summit to create solutions to the violence that persistently plagues our community. The Structure & Pride Youth Summit will take place on Friday, July 21st beginning at 9am, at the Old Walnut Street Family Strengthening Center (1300 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd.). The Summit will provide a platform for kids age 11-18 to offer suggestions for community solutions to violent crime.
\”Our job is to help create alternatives to the many negative stories that seem to follow black youth and encouraging our peers to do better, and be better.” said, De’Andrea Phelps (Youth Summit Planning Committee Member). Phelps also noted, the Summit “is aimed at helping our community to unite and show the best of what we as young people have to offer. Our youth-led summit will focus on ways to improve upon conditions and issues we face at home, at school, and in our communities. We will discuss solutions to violence and other critical questions that have not yet been satisfactorily answered.”
The entire Youth Summit has been designed by local youth to engage approximately 100 of their peers in a dialogue session to formulate recommended solutions to community violence that is informed by \”youth voice\”.
This activity is part of the “Family Strengthening Solutions Summit Series”, LCCC’s annual community engagement program that is designed to create solutions to problems affecting children and families in areas of “Kindergarten Readiness”, “School-aged Youth”, and “Economic Mobility.” The goal of the Summit Series is to achieve LCCC’s strategic vision for its Old Walnut Street Family Strengthening Center by being a cutting-edge organization that articulates strategies, best practices, and standards of self-reliance via development of core competencies and skills of stakeholders from within the community.