“Moving Forward, Together”
2011 NCLR Líderes Summit at the NCLR Annual Conference
By Berenice Bonilla, Program Lead, Líderes Initiative
More than 400 young leaders left the nation’s capital last week empowered and energized to continue driving positive social change in communities across America. After a year of planning and fundraising, the students travelled to Washington, DC for the 2011 Líderes Summit at the NCLR Annual Conference. They came from California, North Carolina, Illinois, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Arizona, New Mexico and Puerto Rico. Several Líderes youth talked at length about the Summit’s impact on the confidence levels of the students, as well as their renewed sense of purpose and newly inspired vision for personal and collective success.
Washington, D.C. was an inspirational and apropos setting for the young Líderes to engage in thoughtful discussions about potential responses and solutions to the many challenges faced by Latino youth today. Featured speakers and student panelists encouraged participants to continue advocating on behalf of the Hispanic community in their home states and on their college campuses. Many of the speakers also delivered inspiring remarks about their own stories, including U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar whose moving words left students feeling motivated to continue pursuing leadership opportunities and following their dreams.
The Summit featured 20 educational workshops with topics spanning eight issue areas that parallel NCLR’s core areas of work. Sessions taught students how to organize successful campus events, be effective public speakers, recruit more Latino students to their campuses, capture the media’s attention, and maximize new media for social advocacy purposes and networking. Students learned about a number of model community programs working to increase the number of Latinos entering college, decrease gang violence in Latino neighborhoods, decrease teen pregnancy rates, help students safeguard their sexual health, offer guidance to young Hispanic professionals seeking leadership opportunities, and more. The Summit’s informal check-in sessions focused on increasing participants’ professional skills, showing them how to improve their professional image, and teaching them to safeguard their personal information on online social networks.
In addition, the youth celebrated Latino culture with ballet folklorico, Afro-Colombian dances, mariachi guitar, reggaeton and bachata, and performances by the renowned classical guitarist Berta Rojas. Participants also honored the musical and lyrical traditions throughout Latin America by presenting a range of acts at the Líderes Cultural Talent Showcase.
There were two civic engagement–focused student panels that featured participants in NCLR’s youth-led advocacy campaigns who are working to increase awareness for Social Security and to decrease barriers to higher education. The Líderes Town Hall, “Forward Thinking: Discussing a Blueprint for Future Leadership,” allowed students to hear from Hispanic professionals in the fields of communications and public affairs, including José Antonio Tijerino, Norelie Garcia, Guillermo Torres, Felix Ortiz, and NCLR’s very own Delia de la Vara.
One of the biggest highlight for students was a greeting by President Barack Obama, who made it a point to shake hands with Summit participants after he addressed the NCLR Annual Conference Monday Luncheon on July 25. The students chanted, “Obama, Obama!” and expressed warm support for the nation’s commander-in-chief. After the event, the students posted pictures on Facebook and Twitter with messages urging the president’s renewed support for the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.”