Saturday, May 28, 2016

31st National Preventing Crime in the Black Community Conference

Wednesday, May 25th, 2016

Today is a very important day as far as the progression of my project is concerned seeing that my group members and I are leaving today to attend the 31st National Preventing Crime in Black Communities conference which is held in Miami, FL. The past few months have involved the planning and preparation of this trip which was comprised of : choosing members to attend, assigning job roles, registration, and depositing all needed funds to secure a place in both the summit and hotel.


Because the event in Miami is a learning experience, every member of my group will be give a small notebook for the purposes of writing down ideas for pieces of the conference that could be implemented into the Glades Teen Summit which is approaching in a few months.

  •  Upon arrival at the hotel, my group registered for the conference and received wristbands and identification lanyards to to show that we were guests attending the conference.
  •  There was also a welcome meeting that provided background on what the purpose of the conference was and the lessons intended to be learned by us, the participants of the conference.

The hotel we were booked at was very nice and gave a very good view of the downtown Miami area.

Je'Cynthia Cent's photo.



Thursday, May 26th, 2016

     Today is when the sessions began, and all of my group agreed that it was a very eye-opening experience. The topics discussed in the sessions were subjects relatable to teens seeing such as the glorification of violence in music, and the realities of police brutality and gang violence throughout predominantly black communities in America. 

     What may have been the highlight of the day was the teen and chaperone luncheon in which we had the honor of hearing American actor Malik Yoba speak about what it means to promote change and the steps that can be taken in order to achieve success.


Malik Yoba after his luncheon message

After the lunch, we participated in a rally on crime prevention by marching through the streets of Miami chanting "Increase the Peace."

Friday, May 27th, 2016

      This is the last day of the summit and also the last day that my group and I will be in Miami. The most inspiring part of the day was definitely when we were introduced to a young man who was able to transform his unfortunate circumstances of being incarcerated to being educated and employed. His message was one of resilience and showed that many things in life are just minor setbacks for major comebacks. The best piece advice received from him was " No one is as bad as the worst thing they've done."

Speaker Angel Sanchez and Va'Tiyah Brown  (left)

       Another highlight of the day was meeting American actor Thomas Mikal Ford. It was really mind blowing because I am a huge follower of a show he once was apart of.

      The afternoon consisted of more sessions with a session called Youth Speak Up Speak Out created for the purposes of adolescent voices being heard. I overcame my small fear of public speaking once again and was able to finally go up and formally introduce myself to my peers and tell them about why I was here and what my vision for the future of Belle Glade was. It helped that many other groups from my town were there to support me in my actions. 

Picture of me (left) and Jazmun (right) with American actor Malik Yoba 




The aims for our group while at the conference include:
         - Finding out how a summit is ran, and which is the best organizational method
       - Seeing what a summit is comprised of and audience/participant response to summ

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