After initial greetings, students attended case-study workshops, where various dynamic leaders from around New York City shared their stories of how they identified a need in their community and how they ultimately addressed the situation:

Omowale Adewale, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Grassroots Artist MovEment (G.A.M.E.), a non-profit membership of artists and organizers working to build youth leadership, increase healthcare access, empower artists, and improve community conditions in the Bronx.

Mac Levine, Founder and Executive Director, Concrete Safaris, which empowers youth to become healthy leaders through green exercise programs that enrich the mind, body, community, and environment.

Henry Serrano, Senior Organizer, Community Voices Heard, an organization of low-income people working to improve the lives of their community by building power in New York City and State through public education, grassroots organization, leadership development, civic engagement, and more.

Barnabas Shakur, Founder & CEO, Project Re-Generation, which works to eliminate teen idleness in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and other nearby neighborhoods through education, recreation, and partnerships.

Joseph Weilgus, Founder, Project Sunshine, a non-profit organization that provides free educational, recreational, and social programs to children facing medical challenges and their families.

Following the case-study workshops, participants engaged in skill-building workshops, where they learned tangible community organizing tools. Volunteer facilitators guided them through a sample community issue and taught participants how to set goals and determine deliverables, and how community mapping can help with identifying needs and resources.

We would like to thank the workshop facilitators who did a tremendous job in the training the student leaders: Eleanor Anderson, Crown Heights Community Mediation Center; Phillip Banks, One Hundred Black Men; Rod Dauphin, Gibson Group; Tanisha Douglas, YouthBridge-NY Intern; Sheri Frank, NYC Commission on Human Rights; Marsha Haygood, Stepwise Associates; Matt Hiltzik, Hiltzik Strategies; Rebecca Kaplan, Hunter College Hillel; Joel Levy, Vera Institute of Justice; Everett Lo, Social Security Administration; Fatima Shama, Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.

This prepared participants for their next workshop, an action-planning session where groups identified a key diversity/social justice challenge that they were facing either in their school or community, led by YouthBridge-NY social work intern Tanisha Douglas. They had the opportunity to begin mapping out what their goals would be to address this issue and what resources were available for their use. The Youth Summit participants were charged with the challenge of going back to their schools and community organizations to implement their new ideas and continue working on their project. YouthBridge-NY staff will be available for support and offer further skill-building trainings via webinars and in-person meeting with participants.

Finally, the conference concluded with our inspirational keynote speaker, Scott Harrison, founder and Executive Director of charity: water, who has dedicated his life to providing safe, clean drinking water in developing nations. Scott wowed the crowd, by demonstrating how he created his own organization through grassroots efforts, raising over $10 million in just three years, with 100% of public donations going directly toward the cause. His presentation was truly rousing and right on target with the conference's mission of empowering young leaders to take on a challenge to improve society.

Overall, the 2009 YouthBridge-NY Leaders to Leaders Youth Summit was a great success! We were able to work with over 130 student leaders representing over 30 schools and organizations, who will now be going back to their communities to implement their diversity/social justice initiatives. We are looking forward to keeping in touch with them and seeing their success progress throughout the year!

We would like to thank Affinity Health Plan for generously underwriting the Leaders to Leaders Youth Summit and donating gift bag goodies. In addition, we would like to thank UJA-Federation of New York for donating the conference space for this event. We also appreciate the kind gift bag donations from Health Plus.