By Elizabeth Bernardi

With mottoes such as “Save our Somerville” and “Save our Villens” screened onto their t-shirts, more than 600 Somerville youth came together on Saturday for the second annual Somerville Youth Peace conference, Uniting the ‘Ville: Real Stories, Real Change.

The event was hosted by the Center for Teen Empowerment and Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. Though the afternoon was centered around peace-minded art and discussion on city policy it also served as a stark reminder of the breadth of struggles faced by city teens.

The main attraction was a 90-minute show, written and performed by Somerville’s own. Spoken word was interlaced with persuasive speeches, and the audience followed a series of vignettes about a clique of Somerville High School students as they faced typical challenges and decisions.

After a casual lunch in the school cafeteria, and a service providers’ information fair in an adjoining room, conference attendees filed into the auditorium, where Bob Marley’s empowering lyrics streamed from the speakers.

Curtatone spoke first, praising the hundreds of attendees, mostly youth, who had come to band together for change. He encouraged the youth to see him as an ally, along with the other local, state, and federal officials present.

“I’m here to listen to you and to hear you,” said Curtatone, who described his role as “recommending policy change” to help resolve the problems teenagers are facing.

Curtatone said the city needed “to create an atmosphere of hope and opportunity.”
“You need to hold my feet to the fire,” he said.

As the show progressed, the performers did just that, boldly identifying a wide range of struggles they face and urging the city to take action. Students identified challenges from immigration issues to alcoholism at home, to a lack of recreational opportunities to gentrification in Somerville neighborhoods.

The point was clear: everything that goes on in Somerville, every change that takes place, affects its youth. Among the speakers, Sean Post stood to present a speech about the need for greater recreation department funding.

“The options for after school and summer,” he said, “are getting thin.” Students find themselves gathering in parks for lack of better options, looking for entertainment in any form, he said.

In another speech, Somerville High School senior Carlos Freire described his dream of being a graphic designer. Before he can go on to college, though, he plans to work for two years to save up some of the $25,000-per-year tuition he will need.

Michael Sullivan took the podium to describe his own near-death struggle with drug use, which led to his  incarceration, and finally, sobriety.

The interlinked vignettes that alternated with these speeches were no less sobering themselves. The storyline followed a group of friends at Somerville High School who struggle with boredom, alcoholism and abuse at home, fear of the future, and opportunities to make illegal choices.

The somber story ended with the death of one of the teens after a drug overdose and the impact of his death on his friends in years that follow. The morality tale highlighted the importance of thoughtful, positive choices as the foundation of a successful life.

A third element of the day’s presentation was spoken word performance, written by the performers themselves. Teen Empowerment Youth Organizer Greg Rego acted and performed his own spoken word in the show.

“I hope that at least one person heard us,” said Rego, who is one of more than a dozen Somerville youth employed as organizers and coordinators by Teen Empowerment. He hoped that after the day’s activities, some members of the audience would pause to consider consequences before acting, he said.

Rego is a lifelong Somerville resident, who thinks it is important for the youth in Somerville who have lived here all their lives to speak up.

“We know there’s a lot of change,” he said of development in Somerville. “We’re not just going to sit around.”

After the presentation, the conference attendees moved on to break-out groups in the high school’s classrooms, where they participated in community-building activities and brainstorming sessions. The day concluded with a healing ceremony, a first step toward the future of Somerville.

But as Rego noted, the day was just the beginning.

“Our real roles,” he said, “start after the show is done.”