Peer Conference Draws 400 Students

Peer Conference Draws 400 Students
By Greg Fish
The Bar Harbor Times
Thursday, November 11, 2004

Bar Harbor – Students in grads 7 to 12 from all over the state came to the Atlantic Oakes last Thursday and Friday to take part in the 21st annual Peer Leadership Conference.

The mission of the event, sponsored annually by the Maine Youth Action Network, is to inspire those attending to create positive change in their communities. These were not typical workshops one often sees, where only a handful of people participate and the rest sit back and watch. Students, as well as their advisers who attended the conference with them, worked interactively throughout the two days. Following a video presentation on a fatal car crash involving alcohol, students discussed ways to increase alcohol awareness in their towns. Skits were designed and performed for all conference attendees at a workshop on improvisational theater. Students at a session on journalism interviewed one another, discovering after that even when talking with friends they were learning new things about each other.

More than 50 workshops in three focus areas were offered, on a wide range of subjects. Speakers from a field relating to the workshops, such as social workers, nutritionists, family planners and journalists, were on hand as well, offering their expertise and advice to attendees. There were sessions on teaching teens about tobacco and about birth control. On ways to be physically active while in class. On how to stop bullying, and how to cope with depression. On improving eating habits, issues dealing with relationships, and coping with bullies. In short, a broad spectrum in interests for teens-and often, their communities as a whole – were covered at the conference.

Among the students attending from MDI High School were the nine girls who created the “In Our Image” film documentary; MDIHS School Leadership Team representatives; student belonging to the Y.E.S.! (Youth Engaging in Society) group; and MDI Youth Press young writers and editors.

There were upward of 400 attendees at the event, and while a group that size could have become disorganized, they instead were just the opposite – well behaved and attentive, filled with purpose and ready to learn.

“I want to d what I can to make a difference in my community,” said one student as he left one workshop eager to attend the next. “This is a great place to get info on that.”

Indeed it was.