The D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) held its inaugural D.C. Teen Summit on March 13, providing a forum for residents ages 13-18 to openly discuss issues that affect them and ask questions in a safe and supportive environment.
“It’s for youth to have the space for us to be able to speak up and tell the adults what we need,” said Jordan Williams, 18, a teen panelist at the event. “Closed mouths don’t get fed.”
The youth-led summit, held at the Columbia Heights Community Center in Northwest, gave teens a productive way to spend a designated “wellness day” off from D.C. Public Schools and earn community service hours.
The Friday gathering was inspired by BET’s “Teen Summit,” filmed in D.C. from 1989 to 2002, which offered Black youth and young adults the mic to lead and discuss current issues in front of an audience of their peers.
Safiyyah Aleem-Woods, youth development program coordinator for the teens division, and program analyst Kiara Stevenson implemented ideas from DPR’s Supreme Teens Club, Youth Advisory Committee, and other local teen focus groups to develop the summit’s content and inform speakers and performers.
“This is not a one-stop shop,” Aleem-Woods said. “Show up, and we’ll show up for you.”
DPR, which served more than 100,000 young people last year through different events, takes youth engagement seriously, according to Director Thennie Freeman.
“In our budget, we ensure that we prioritize youth events,” Freeman told The Informer. “We make sure that there are events that are of no cost to our young people. We advocate for that.”
For WPGC-FM’s Poet Taylor, a community advocate who moderated the summit, participating in the Friday event was particularly important, as she is able to resonate with the teens’ struggles, having overcome obstacles as a young person.
“By the time I was 14, I had been arrested twice in D.C. for assault charges with weapons,” Taylor said. “I grew up in foster care between D.C., PG County and Baltimore, Maryland. My parents were addicts. I was a crack baby.”
With the recreation center gym transforming into a day of wellness and fun, featuring a DJ, vendors, snacks, photo backdrops, and understanding adults, the summit offered a space for local youth to feel free and at peace.
“Today is a very safe space,” Taylor told the students.
Asking and Answering the Tough Questions
On the main stage, five teenage panelists and two adults addressed a range of topics – from starting careers, self-acceptance, teen curfews, and dealing with law enforcement.
Teen panelists, including Jordan Williams, Yasameen Kakar, Laila Thomas, Hailey Wood, and Samierah Woods, led the discussion. Tia Bell, founder of the Trigger Project, and community advocate David “Big Zo” Wilkerson served as the seasoned adults giving advice and reminding teens of their power.
“I don’t know about you all, but I’m sick of hearing people say teenagers don’t care about the real world,” Yasameen said in her opening statement. “Every day, misconceptions spread as more and more adults underestimate the dedication of youth and the realities they face.”
Kaitlyn Arbit, who aspires to be in the JAG Corps, described difficulty fitting in after moving to D.C. two years ago.
“It’s hard for me to find a place at my school because I went from a majority to a minority,” Kaitlyn, 16, said. “How do you find your place? Or, even if you don’t find a place, how do you make it your place?”
A Cardozo Senior High School alumnus, who grew up nearby on 11th and Girard Streets, Wilkerson offered advice considering his own experiences in adolescence.
“The best thing you can do right now is create your own safe space and live in your own world…Don’t allow nobody else to dictate your life,” Wilkerson said in response. “Everybody around me was outside in the streets, sliding, doing all this; I played basketball, that was my thing. It took a lot for me to actually be an athlete in that environment. I [had] to be able to say, ‘that’s not my place.’”
Wood, 18, also emphasized to Kaitlyn— who was invited to join DPR’s Teen Youth Advisory Committee– and her fellow teens, the importance of not acquiescing to the societal pressures of today.
“I feel like people from D.C. think there’s only two paths to life here: either, ‘I’m going to be a gangster and have guns’ or ‘I’m going to be an [Instagram] baddie’ – that’s not life. That’s not real. Social media is not real,” she said. “You can make your own way of life.”
Relatability and Reaching Back
The adult panelists were relatable, speaking the teens’ language and sharing experiences all too familiar to youth in the city.
Bell and Wilkerson, both from uptown D.C. — which includes the area where the summit was held— discussed how violent incidents when they were younger led them to the work they do now.
“My mother was shot 14 blocks from here, twice, by two different women in broad daylight,” Bell revealed. “All were under the age of 25.”
The H.D. Woodson HS alumna now works to stop the spread of youth gun violence.
“Y’all are not the problem,” Bell said. “Y’all are the solution.”
When a teen named Nile stood at the mic, he wondered if he could ask an officer a question. Wilkerson left the stage briefly and returned wearing a police uniform.
“Do you fear waking up every day?” Nile asked him.
A 44-year-old father of three, Wilkerson responded: “Yes and no.”
“I don’t fear waking up. I believe I’m protected by God and walking in my purpose,” Wilkerson said. “My purpose is actually out here trying to help save the lives of some of the kids that I see myself as ‘I was you, I was him.’”
Wilkerson said he entered law enforcement despite his interactions with police, sharing that he was beaten up by an officer when he was in college.
“That was one of the reasons that made me say, ‘You know what? I’ve got to make a difference,’” he said, “because this wasn’t right.”
Repairing Emotional Damage, Circle of Trust
Understanding teenage challenges was a hot topic, with youth expressing their desires, needs and hopes for how adults can support them and create safer spaces physically and emotionally.
“It took me a while to accept that I didn’t know how to control my emotions,” Samirah, 17, said. “Every time I feel like something wasn’t going my way, or it just wasn’t what I like to hear, I would crash out.”
While “crashing out” is a common term used among youth to explain losing control, Bell said she knows the feeling.
“I was angry,” Bell said, “and for a long time I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
In college, she punched a wall during basketball practice and broke her hand. After that, she was sent to a therapist, who she said gave her new language for what she had been holding – baggage – and helped her understand how to release it. During the summit, she offered the teens similar tools.
“Sweet babies, things happen for us – not to us,” she told them. “You were not crashing out; you were learning to regulate your emotions.”
Friends Raegan Greddie, Miell Moore, and Corvan Nunn stood together to share a free resource and encourage other teens to join a beneficial program they are a part of: Tumaini DC. The program’s Sankofa Saturdays meets for a few hours three times a month, and provides food, training, and a good environment for teens to be together and feel empowered.
“We wanted to come up here to give a big shout out to Tumaini DC,” said Raegan, 16. “It is a program that helps us with emotional intelligence and have the safe space to talk to one another.”
After the open-hearted conversation about emotional intelligence, Freeman had the adults in the room stand, form a physical circle around the teens, and applaud their presence and courage.
“Look at this circle,” she told the teens. “Every single adult in here was once you.”
She also acknowledged the teens who were not in the room; some whose negative behavior she attributed to pain from hunger and difficult living situations.
“We hear you. We are working to serve you,” Freeman said. “For any of you who feel like your government failed you, for any of you who feel like your recreation center is not a safe place or space, I apologize.”
Taylor offered a reminder for the teens and adults alike:
“This is what the village is.”
Youth Engagement in Action, Looking Toward the Future
For D.C. native and entertainer Wes Felton – an original member of “Teen Summit’s” rotating cast of panelists, known as the “Posse” – seeing the Department of Recreation work toward uplifting local youth is encouraging.
“I am glad to see DPR remembers the importance and impact of the show. I hope they continue to produce them,” Felton, 50, told The Informer. “I would love to be a guest moderator/host.”
As in the days of the BET show, this convening brought all types of young people together – from Miss American Teenager Zoe Lewis to young people from a group home — all with the purpose of uplifting youth and the community overall.
“I felt like it was very inspirational,” Zoe, 17, said, noting participants were engaged the whole time. “I think that this is really important for teens in D.C. and just around the world, to have places like these, [where] we can all be together and just speak freely with others, with adults that understand.”
Plus, as DJ Torch kept the crowd rocking, participants received giveaways, prizes and a surprise musical performance by local artist Bri3.
While the focus was to offer a safe space for fun, the youth also offered one another a call to action.
“I hope that, as a community of teens, we all try to encourage each other instead of putting each other down,” Williams said.
The future of additional teen summits will be up to the teens.
“Our goal is to allow this to shape and form decision-making,” Freeman said. “Young people will tell us what’s next. Young people will tell us what programming they need to see that responds to their needs.”
As DPR and teens plan the next event, they also hope local youth will feel safe to express their concerns.
“I think one thing that I hope that teens take away from this is to not always feel like their voice can’t be heard,” Samierah said, “and that if they need help, they can always find help. There’s always someone [who] can help them, or [who] can hear them out.”