The Center for Teen Empowerment’s Somerville Youth Peace Conference provided an outlet for young people to express their hopes, fears, and ideas to the community and to one another. – Photo by Alexandra Botti

By Alexandra Botti

The high school auditorium was buzzing. This was no mandatory school assembly, and it was not a room full of disinterested teenagers who were somewhere they’d prefer not to be on a sunny Saturday. Instead, hoots and cheers went up as each new performer came to the stage, microphone in hand.

The young girl named Lisa told the audience of her struggles with body image through a self-composed monologue, and gave out words of comfort: “You are not alone,” she told the crowd. “You’re beautiful in your own way.” Shouts of “I love you, Lisa!” and other exclamations of support filled the room as the lights went down on her, and up on the next set of performers.

This is the Somerville Youth Peace Conference, a day of original performances by Somerville teens based on their own experiences and ideas for community change. The day also included accompanying workshops, a jobs and services fair, and an open-mic Hope and Healing ceremony where youth could make dedications to those loved or lost.

Presented by the Center for Teen Empowerment, Mayor Joseph Curtatone, Somerville Public Schools and the City of Somerville, the conference – whose theme this year was Media Meets My Reality – explored issues from bullying and teen violence to immigration and cross-cultural understanding. Students shared intimate stories on topics such as substance abuse, domestic violence, and the ways teens can overcome major obstacles in their personal lives. These stories took the form of original song, speech, dance, and theater. Weaving all these together was one overarching narrative, also dreamed up by the youth.

The inspiration for the Somerville Youth Peace Conference goes back to 1993, when the Center for Teen Empowerment held its first annual Boston Youth Peace Conference, which gathered Boston teens together to help solve grave issues of gang violence in the city. A resounding success, the conference produced a lasting truce among five rival gangs, and set the stage for significant community improvement.

The Somerville event aims to use the arts to convey ideas for community change, and to give voice to the youth often overlooked in problem solving and brainstorming for the future of their community, explained Stephanie Berkowitz, Direct of External Relations for The Center for Teen Empowerment. “It’s an amazing display of youth leadership.”

Teen Empowerment hires the teen participants in the conference, interviewing between 85 and 90 youth for the paid role. Ultimately, 12 are offered the position. Closer to the conference, an additional 20 youth associates are brought on to help. Along with a few volunteers, most of the teens performing on stage are technically working. But you’d never know it.

A pretty young woman with long hair and a singing voice that could easily belong to someone twice her age, Lipasha Pradham performed a number of times throughout the day. “I’ve always been the type of person who helps in the community,” she said.  “At TE [Teen Empowerment] they always give you a chance. They care more about your future than your past.”

Perhaps as a result of troubled pasts, many of the participating teens delved into difficult and deeply private topics with their original work. “Maybe if my father was around, I’d be better able to navigate this world,” pondered one young woman on stage. Thoughtful reflections of this kind abounded over the course of the afternoon.

Humor was still sprinkled liberally throughout, however. As the afternoon’s framing narrative progressed, a young man played out an amusing scene in which he struggled with whether to share a racy text message photo from his girlfriend with his pressuring friends (garnering fits of laughter from the audience). Fully engaged in the scenario, the teens yelled out from their seats “Don’t do it!” and “You’ll regret it!” Fittingly, all around the auditorium iPhones were lifted up into the air to digitally capture the text message drama unfolding on stage.

“Media meets my reality” is an apt name for this year’s conference, with the youth exploring a number of ways in which media affects their view of the world, as well as how they are viewed by others. One performance reminded us, bluntly: “What TV and Facebook tell us is not realistic.”

More than 500 youth attended Saturday’s conference, many of whom bought tickets being sold at the high school. “It was better than I expected,” said Billy Wen, a teen who learned of the event during school. “I heard it was boring in the past. You can’t say until you experience it for yourself. I like the performances, the singing, and I can’t wait to see the dance. It’s…influencing.”

At one point that afternoon, a young woman stood in a soft spotlight singing into the darkened hall. Asserting that she would overcome her troubled past and “make it to the top” no matter what, she looked out over the audience and sang: “I’ll do it even if I’m alone.” But based on the crowd of whooping youth, eager to praise and hold up their fellow teens in their honest confessions and profoundly personal performances, it’s difficult to imagine that she’ll be alone at all.

For more information about Teen Empowerment Somerville, visit http://www.teenempowerment.org/somerville.html.