ROANOKE, Va. – The city of Roanoke hosted its annual Youth Summit Saturday afternoon at William Fleming High School, which brought teens together in a safe environment that taught them how they could be better adults in the future.
“Building relationships and understanding how people can talk it out and how to solve issues peacefully,” Roanoke City Youth Services Board Chair Anita James Price said. “Those are lifelong learning skills that people need.”
The event saw teens of all ages attend various workshops and participate in teen-friendly activities designed at bringing them closer, educating them on a variety of topics and making them feel closer to the community.
“Some of the workshops I went into today were more so about loving yourself and then there are more about redlining and things like that, which is very intuitive,” Youth Planner Lilly Cuevas said. “Then just seeing how these kids could take that back home tonight and implement those ideas.”
Workshops also included topics such as diversity and conflict resolution.
Organizers say importantly, the youth summit is helping youth become leaders by bringing in kids from different groups together so they can make their community better as a whole.
“They know that there is a safe space for them to come to and there are other like-minded youth like them who see these problems in the communities and want to fix them as well,” Cuevas said.
The Youth Summit took place in the afternoon, a different time than usual. However, today’s theme was a “lock in” and dubbed the “PJ Jam,” which encouraged teens to dress up in their pajamas to give the summit a comfy twist.