Urban youths seek positive changes

By Sean Barron

YOUNGSTOWN — Doniece Fletcher is proud that she successfully used mediation skills recently to avert a fight between two other girls.

“My friend was going to fight and I said, ‘You have a lot going for you.’ I told her that life is really too short, and that it’s not worth having this anger and guilt,” recalled Doniece, an East High School junior.

Doniece worked with her friend for a few months, and the two girls who were to fight each other eventually solved their differences, she noted.

Conflict-resolution skills and preventing violence in the schools and community were two of many topics that an estimated 75 students from four area high schools discussed and explored during Saturday’s Urban Youth Engagement Summit 2009 at East High on the city’s East Side.

The effort’s main aim was to equip the youngsters with skills to help them become leaders and make positive differences in their communities, organizers said. They are to spend the next few months planning a project based on issues of importance to them before performing a community-service project for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in January.

The students represented Warren G. Harding High School in Warren as well as Youngstown’s East and Chaney high schools and Youngstown Early College.

The event also was a collaboration between the Raymond J. Wean Foundation, Mahoning Youngstown Community Action Partnership, Warren and Youngstown city school districts, Upward Bound, YEC, Project Gridiron, the Youth Volunteer Corps of the Valley and HandsOn Volunteer Network of the Valley.

The students, their facilitators and co-facilitators started by viewing a film, “The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative,” then broke into 10 small groups to discuss the video and how it can be a tool for positive change in Youngstown, then formulated questions for Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams and Warren Mayor Michael J. O‘Brien.

The film looks at the ways many residents of Boston’s Roxbury section came together to make Boston’s leaders aware of their needs while collaborating to draw on each person’s talents and available resources to better their community. That is another goal of the youth summit, noted Penny Wells, a retired teacher and UYES committee member.

A primary topic addressed by Chaney students Jasmine Rushton, Sha’Vonta Collins, Shanae Davis, Jonelle McIntyre, Brianna Zagetti, Kierea Simms and Austin Williams was dealing more effectively with gang violence and poverty. Other concerns were doing more to improve graduation rates, cleaning up litter, establishing a community day-care center for pregnant teens and providing more extracurricular activities.

Youngstown would greatly benefit by having a central youth facility downtown that would be available to youths from all over the city for education, recreation and social gatherings, said Barraya Hickson, a junior at East.

One way to put a dent in gang activity and other forms of violence is for young people to get to know one another better, she said. It’s also important for them to be proud they’re part of Youngstown, as opposed to seeing themselves as superior because of being affiliated with a certain section of town, she added.

“The [Dudley Street] film moved me because they actually came together as a city,” Barraya said, adding, “I feel we’re capable of it.” Just as important as increased funding for city schools is allowing students to better understand how the money is being spent, noted Jasmine High, a junior with YEC.

Youngstown has programs in place to help steer young people from trouble, but the initiatives should be promoted more, she said. Tackling crime and blight in Warren, adding more youth centers, refurbishing city parks and razing abandoned homes were on the minds of Harding students Gabe Talanca, O’Sha Jackson, Jasmine Workman and Terrill Harvey.

During the question session, O’Brien was asked about Warren’s dilapidated homes, Eighty structures will be demolished in the next month, especially near schools, he said. And community gardens throughout the city and other ideas will be considered for the newly created green space.

Other amenities for youngsters will be a skate park and more entertainment for those age 13-19 at the Warren Amphitheater, he added.

Mayor Williams took part in an online session from Berlin, Germany, where he’s attending a conference on how some cities, such as Youngstown, are shifting from an industrial to a technological base.

Jasmine asked both mayors about what’s being done to reduce litter; both noted that nonviolent offenders are picking up trash. And Youngstown police pull over people they see tossing garbage from vehicles, Williams added.

Both mayors urged the students to attend council meetings and have representatives from their schools at such public gatherings.

O’Brien said their efforts “will be rippling throughout the community,” and reminded them that President Barack Obama started as a community organizer.