Starting the morning off at 9AM after a long night chatting with the NGLTF staff took its toll as I rushed to make my first workshop on time.

The Youth of Color Organizing Summit put on by FIERCE, was fierce. There were about 40 youth of color who come from so many different walks of life with just one goal. How to better organize ourselves and our peers. The amount of energy in that room was AMAZING. I love being surrounded by so many like-minded, brilliant, youth. They each shared so much about themselves and the work they day. It was great to have youth opening up so much about the folks they work with and the issues that they may be facing.

I was in a very small set of youth that work within organizations that practice equitable youth adult partnerships and authentic youth voice. Makes me love my city of PDX all that much more.

Topics covered included, systems of oppression, types of discrimination, building your (membership) base, organizational structuring and even got to learn a little more about FIERCE (an organization that was created for and by youth) that made me reflect back to my organizations at home. I felt at home with all of these youth and it was very easy to share what we do to deal with issues as they arise.

Near the end we split up into 4 groups to talk about specific issues youth were having in their organizations. Building membership base, including allies, youth adult partnerships, retention/aging out of members. These topics built off of the training we had taken earlier on scripting recruitment and starting a campaign. We used a lot of real life examples and how to strategically win a campaign lead by youth.

I think my biggest take home today revolved around the fact that most youth still don’t understand the power the hold in an organization. That by the mere fact that we are the service recipients we control the power and should advise our organizations about the needs we have. It is important to note that although we suffer many forms of oppression, we have a unique ability and power to overcome any obstacle we face.

Can’t wait for what day two will hold.

P.S. I started a Twitter Account recently and am having a hard time figuring out all the @ and #’s and where they go/what they do, so if you have advice please share.