Youth at the Reclaiming Futures Leadership Institute

It's getting a little late to post about our Reclaiming Futures Leadership Institute, but I wanted to make sure to mention a great lunchtime performance. In the past, we've sometimes been able to include youth in our conferences; though that wasn't possible this year, we were honored to see a local youth jazz band, the Trendsetters (seen at left) perform -- they even got some of us dancing! (Photo courtesy of Cheryl Reed; click on photo to see larger version.) Though it doesn't do justice to these talented young men, you can also see a video of these teens performing on the streets of New Orleans. (It's a pretty horrible video, actually; unfortunately, they're not yet on YouTube.)

Also in the vein of "youth voice," each of the the 23 communities present was asked to bring a large poster describing what "Reclaiming Futures" meant to it. Many chose to involve youth in this activity, and the resulting depictions were as inspiring as they were various. See left for a snapshot showing some of their work (photo and display courtesy of Cheryl Reed - click for larger image).