Regional Youth Peace Summit
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Written by: TheGatheringforJustice
Published on: August 20, 2007
Name: Danyelle Halpern Barrios Unidos, a non-profit organization dedicated to prevention of violence amongst youth, and a partner of the Gathering, hosted a Regional Peace Summit to organize young people in Maryland, Virginia, & D.C. This event brought together 202 former, current, or potential gang members and chaperones to address youth violence within the community and link these youth with culturally appropriate gang prevention and intervention services. This event also caught the attention of many local leaders and youth from various ethnicities and geographic locations. The main objective of this three day conference was peace-building, and urging the youth within these various communities to turn to non-violent resolutions to their conflicts. Juan Pacheco, in conjunction with Barrios Unidos provided all participants with inspiration, education and entertainment by educators, community leaders, and celebrity representation from a range of cultural traditions. The idea of working together with others and sharing responsibility and accountability within the community in order to stop violence were some of the main points stressed to participants at the conference. The purpose of the Peace Summit was to promote awareness to participants, that gangs are a community problem, and should be dealt with constructively, by educating the youth on non-violent alternatives rather than gang involvement. The Peace Summit provided a variety of approaches with which the community could address the gang problem including: active involvement of the schools, police, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, public health professionals, and/or the assistance of others interested in an interactive and cooperative approach to gang violence. The Peace Summit provided individuals within the community a safe haven where they could discuss what regular issues at-risk youngsters are dealing with on an everyday basis, and possible solutions to those types of problems. The Peace Summit emphasized the fact that without community awareness and involvement, youth gangs will become more violent and increase in numbers. It is the responsibility of the community to take action and get involved in aiding those at-risk. The main goals of the September Peace Summit were to provide healing/inspirational and skills workshops, link participants to gang prevention and intervention programs within their communities, establish an environment of Peace, Love, Respect, and Personal Responsibility, and expose the youth to different inspirational speakers. Youth were encouraged to help in community efforts to end youth violence. To end, the conference participants were asked to sign a “Code of Conduct�, and participate in a closing ceremony, which would further their commit of personal responsibility in transforming their world into a more peaceful place. The efforts of Juan Pacheco and Barrios Unidos were extremely noteworthy, and the 2006 Peace Summit is deemed a huge success. Hopefully, in the future we will see results within the communities of those individuals who participated in this conference and we will continue to see community involvement and awareness when it comes to youth violence.
