Teen Empowerment Somerville held its 13th Annual Somerville Youth Peace Conference last weekend at Somerville High School.

The Lies We Live, The Truth We Tell, was the name of this year’s Somerville Youth Peace Conference, where members of Teen Empowerment Somerville performed a show this past Saturday at the school with three different acts in which they tackled different issues that teenagers are facing nowadays. The performances mainly focused on mental health issues, teenage pregnancy, and drug addiction.

The show began at 6:00 p.m. and it started with Mayor Joseph Curtatone, who gave a speech about teen empowerment in which he mentioned how teenagers have been involved in changing policies, and helped to make Somerville a safer place for everybody in their community. He also said the pressures that teenagers face today are different from the ones older generations once faced.

Curtatone also said that teenagers today are brave and courageous, and we can all learn from how students are fighting for issues like gun control and lack of diversity in politics.

Lastly, he said he is proud of how Somerville believes in their youth, as they have shown by pressing to lower the municipal voting age to 16.

In the first act, teenagers Oskervens Leneus, Mila Maia, Elie Billon, and Tyrell L. Lee began telling the story of how a couple of teens dealt with an unwanted pregnancy and how one of their friends dealt with his drug addiction.

The second act had students Melanie Mauniz, Oskervens Leneus and Ekaterina Hicks-Magana sing a song called Everything You Need that focused on the mixed feelings that come after a couple of teens break up, but also how to support friends who are going through difficult times when their parents do not support them.

After that, Smirline Jacques performed a poem, The Hurt You Gave, in which she shared her own story about how she was bullied and how unrealistic beauty standards affected her self-esteem. She also reminded everyone that bullying can start with one person, but that one person could also help end it, and that person could be any of us.

Another performance that left everyone speechless was given by Youdson Felix, who recited a poem in which he said that being black made him feel scared, as he feared that he could not control the way the world perceived him or treated him.

In the third act, there was a powerful performance by Jadrianis Vega, who recited a poem, Mujer Poderosa, that explained how strong immigrant Latina women are, due to the amount of hard work they had to endure in order to help their kids get an education.

Teachers, parents and friends were all proud of their loved ones who performed their original content on a stage, singing and acting out scenes that dealt with issues like racism, sexism and homophobia. They made it clear that it is not only teens that are struggling with these social problems, but in the political climate we live in we all are.

~Photos by Claudia Ferro