Activities
The weekend was centered around fellowship and fun. Friday night when we arrived, the campers checked in and we started off with ice breakers and what our goals were for the weekend.
After that I, and the two of high schoolers who came up with the event, gave a small speech on the backstory of how we got to the idea of the event and expressed our gratitude. Directly after, we had our guest speaker Rev. Gloria Winston speak about how we find ourselves in predominantly white spaces.
The next morning we had a group devotional and started the day with breakfast. Breakfast finished and we went out into breakout groups to talk about identity and registering our feelings. We had three speakers rotate the groups and talk about various topics centered around identity and safety. The whole group went to lunch then had time for rest and games. During free time, we played a game of volleyball, watched cartoons, and played Fifa.
Around 5pm we went to eat dinner at the cafeteria and prepared for our last activity for the day. A speaker came and talked to us about the history of the United Methodist Church Conference and how it is important to recognize the wrong in the past for a better future. We ended the night with a nightly devotional and went to bed.
The final day overall was filled of reflection, feedback and fun. Our final speaker spoke in the morning to us about how we can go out into the world with the knowledge we gained from the weekend and anything new we learned about ourselves. He said, "no change will come unless you make it happen." We finished the day out with a movie and everyone ate snacks and popcorn.
Some of the campers left, and others stayed for the next camp the following week. As I was laying in my bed on that final night, I thought to myself, "wow Yani, you made this dream a reality." It was so surreal for me that me and my friends had put this work in for a year and our dream came true.
Action and Change
After that weekend, I really contemplated about how this change could still be applied even outside of the space we were in.
This led us to continue to reach out to churches especially with majority minority youth groups and let them know what we are doing. During our promotional stage, we got the bishop of the United Methodist Church to make a promotional video and advertise the event at Annual Conference prior to the event. Even after our event, many churches reached out to us to express their excitement and support for our movement.
Jared, Manny, and I continued to reach out to churches and inform youth that their dreams can come true no matter what age and what race. We were given the opportunity to speak about the Más Diversity at the fall session of events which had over 2,000 attendees.
Más Diversity has opened even more opportunities for me. I have been partnering with a church in the triangle area called Fiesta la Cristiana and have worked with their youth coordinator to plan weekly curriculums as well as speaking with the youth group about Más Diversity and how they can get involved in their church and the church conference to make a difference.
I had the opportunity to mentor a middle schooler named Alec who attended Más Diversity and was inspired to run for a position on our Conference Youth Committees. I spoke with him for hours curtailing his essay and speech and giving him a history lesson about the youth conference and the committees available. He ran for his position this April and won and now is another representative for his Hispanic heritage making an impact in the conference.