Teen Empowerment has a long history of bringing area youth and community leaders together to establish dialogs that help each side to better understand the other’s wants, needs and expectations.

By Haley Houseman

For the first time, CHNA and Teen Empowerment, in conjunction with Mount Auburn Hospital, will host a Community Health Youth Summit for Thursday, March 19, in Cambridge. It will draw participants from six surrounding towns, including Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, Somerville, Waltham, and Watertown. These cities involved are connected through CHNA 17, a coalition made up of representatives from public, non-profit and private sectors from all six communities.

The youth and adults, among them students, police officers, city workers and community advocates are all invested in the well being the community and its young people. The group will be focused on challenges in health, uniting passionate members of the community across city lines.

With funding from Mount Auburn Hospital, CHNA 17 funds the ten Youth Leadership and Community Health Grant winners, whose work will be highlighted at the summit. The ten Youth Leadership grantees include Teen Empowerment, Somerville Groundworks, the Margaret Fuller House and the Cambridge Prevention Coalition. Other participants are Somerville Cares About Prevention, and the Cambridge Health Alliance/Somerville Public Schools.

“These young people are leaders in their school and communities, they care and actively work to bring awareness and implement solutions to some of the most pressing health issues,” says Heang Ly. Ly is the director of Consulting and Training for the Center for Teen Empowerment.

Teen Empowerment uses workshops to teach group skills and cooperation. The organization has recently been contracted to support and work with all city departments in Somerville to direct outreach programs for young people. Most recently, they brought together with great success a group of youth, community members and police to build relationships around this traditionally strained relationship.

In the upcoming summit the organizations hope to share and learn from youth leadership and community projects in order to better address health issues. In building a constructive dialogue they will be teaching leadership and stress management skills for both youth and adults.

Among the issues they hope to tackle are relationship violence and homelessness, as well as drug and alcohol abuse and reproductive issues. They will also discuss school-related concerns such as bullying, and the availability of health resources both mental and physical.

The desire is to galvanize change in the community by connecting passionate members of the community of all ages and backgrounds. In the wake of particular moments of protests and tensions within the community, the summit hopes to build a profitable and supportive dialogue.

To learn more about the Youth Summit, its programs and sponsors, visit www.tinyurl.com/youthsummit2015.

Community Health Youth Summit for Thursday, March 19, 5-8:30 p.m. at the Dante Alighieri Italian Cultural Center, 41 Hampshire Street in Cambridge.