WARREN Leadership conference aims to empower youths

The national coordinator for the conferences is from Warren.
By AMANDA C. DAVIS
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- More than 130 youths, many from the Mahoning and Shenango valleys, are expected to participate Saturday in a leadership conference here.
The Mahoning Valley Youth to Leaders Conference at Warren G. Harding High School is an initiative of the Tavis Smiley Foundation, formed in November 1999 and based in Los Angeles.
Smiley is host of "BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley" and author of "Doing What's Right."
He will lead the free conference from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Warren G. Harding High School.
Daylong activities: A press conference with Smiley is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. at the school; Warren native Korey Stringer of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings will be guest speaker during a dinner that evening; and Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of the Cleveland area is scheduled to be there.
"How Youth Can Make America Better" is the conference theme.
Participating students had to be nominated by an area church, school or organization and complete an application and 250-word essay explaining a community problem and ways to address it.
The foundation received 300 local applications and essays but pared the list to 135 students, ages 14 to 18, from the Mahoning and Shenango valleys, and from Cleveland, Canton, Akron and Columbus.
Steve Arnold of Warren is national coordinator for the Youth to Leaders conferences, which are geared toward empowering black students.
The program will likely expand in coming years to serve young people of all races, he noted.
Arnold, a 1982 Harding graduate, now works for the Ohio Department of Commerce but was director of the Teamed for Success mentorship group at Harding a few years ago.
It was then he met Smiley, who came to Harding to speak to the group, Arnold said.
The two spent weekends working to coordinate Youth to Leader events, which started last year and were staged in cities including Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, Calif., and Washington, D.C.
This year's series of one-day conferences will return to those cities and also make stops in New York City and Houston.
So why Warren?
The 2001 workshops kick off here, Arnold said, because smaller urban school districts face many of the same challenges as do their larger counterparts, just on a smaller scale.
"Our area needs this," Arnold said. "This is strictly to serve our young people."
What teens face: Agenda items for discussion will include careers/education, teen pregnancy and peer pressure, violence in schools, racial profiling, hate crimes, drug and alcohol abuse and affirmative action.
A town hall meeting for teens will begin at 11:15 a.m., moderated by Smiley, local news anchors and Harding senior Lena Davie. Youth to Leaders alumni across the country will log onto a live Webcast with questions and responses.
Sponsors include Trumbull Metropolitan Housing Authority; AVI Food Systems Inc.; Stringer's company, Dynamic Computers; Coca-Cola Co.; and American Airlines.
All student participants will be invited to a three-day meeting with Smiley in the fall in Washington, D.C., to meet with leaders.