Brave New Voices

Spring has sprung, along with an array of exciting asset building activities. From "Spark" Training to sandbag slinging, youth in the Fargo-Moorhead area have been active and engaged in community service.

Recently, I saw a commercial advertising a new HBO series showcasing the spoken word pieces of youth across the nation. The youth in this series are engaged, empowered, and poetic.

Check it out! http://www.hbo.com/bravenewvoices/about/

Brave New Voices is a new seven-part series that features teenage poets and their mentors from San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Santa Fe, Ft. Lauderdale, Honolulu and Ann Arbor as they prepare for Youth Speaks' 2008 Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Finals.

These young poets represent a growing national movement featuring thousands of teenagers writing and performing spoken word as a way to have voice in their communities and in the nation as a whole. These are the Brave New Voices and the organizations that support them.

The youth represent an amazing blend of spoken word, hip-hop, poetry, music, power, voice, imagination, and more. Brave New Voices sheds light onto this largely unseen world, putting an honest spotlight on some of the most dynamic young adults in the country.

Curious George Sighting

Saturday, April 18th at the Moorhead Center Mall
Curious George will be celebrating Week of the Young Child

I would encourage you to bring your family to celebrate young children and families with a fun filled morning at the Moorhead Center Mall.

If you have questions please call Metro Youth Partnership 218-299-5437.

Reflection

I know that as we were all fighting back the waters of the mighty Red, Buffalo, and Wild Rice Rivers the last thing that was on our minds was asset building.

I would encourage you to reflect on the last 12 days, to find some stories to share with others about the impact you made on the community and the lives of the people who came to help us fight back the waters. As you all know, where there are people interacting there are opportunities to build assets and those are the stories we would love to hear about.

Please share your stories by clicking on this link and completing the form!

A message from our Executive Director:

The flood of 2009 is not over yet, but we are breathing collective sighs of relief. The stories of people fighting for their community have been inspirational and overwhelming. Once again, our young people stood shoulder to shoulder in this fight against the flood – whether they were natives, college students or young people from around the region.

We want to make sure we capture the stories of young people who came to the rescue. Please send us your stories, big and small….if you have names and feel comfortable using them, that is great; in those cases, it would be helpful to also have contact info – phone/address/email. Please also include links to news stories, YouTube, Facebook, anything that captures the involvement of young people. Eventually, we may come up with a more high tech way to capture these stories, but do not want to waste time. And I don’t have a concrete plan as to what to do with the stories, but do want to begin the process of capturing them.

Thanks, in advance.

Barry Nelson, Executive Director

Metro Youth Partnership