The document summarizes a youth conference called "Battles in Our Backyard" that was held in Poughkeepsie, NY to educate and inform teenagers on nonviolence as an alternative to the violence seen in their communities and in the media. The conference was organized by two recent Vassar College graduates and involved approximately 30 teenagers from Poughkeepsie and Lowell, MA. The teens socialized, watched a documentary on youth violence in Miami, and discussed their experiences with violence and possible alternatives. Throughout the day, the teens explored productive nonviolence as an alternative to confrontation and discussed local youth projects, like making and selling salsa, as positive ways to change their communities.

1. Battles in Our Backyard
Youth Conference Aims to Educate, Inform on Nonviolence
By Vanni Cappelli
At a time when urban battles in distant Baghdad fill our television screens and compel anxious thoughts about our nation’s
future, it must not be forgotten that senseless violence closer to home raises no less troubling questions about our societal
fabric. The longstanding problem of strife in America’s inner cities, often gang and drug-fueled but also degenerating into
killings over petty personal grievances, has recently received renewed national attention because of the chaotic situation in
post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
Yet as a recent youth miniconference, titled “Battles in Our Backyard,” held last week in Poughkeepsie to discuss the issue
demonstrated, the phenomenon of casual violence knows no geographic boundaries. And any attempt to address it has to
begin by fostering dialogue and attitudinal changes amongst its chief victims and perpetrators – young people themselves.
Two recent Vassar College graduates involved in youth social work with an agrarian accent, Maura Beaufait and Lydia
Sisson, organized the gathering at the Family Partnership Center at 29 North Hamilton St. on Feb. 3. Approximately 30
teenagers from Poughkeepsie and Lowell, Mass., where Sisson is also active, participated in an event in which they played a
substantial role as co-organizers, in keeping with the philosophy of youth self-empowerment that animated the gathering.
Attendees socialized, dined together, watched a documentary on youth violence in Miami and finished by discussing as a
group the realities they had seen on screen and in their daily lives – and possible alternatives to them.
The conference was made possible by donations of food and services from area businesses such as Rossi Deli, Hudson Valley
Foodworks, NY Bagel Bistro, Stop & Shop, Market on Main, Uno’s Chicago Grill and the River Church.
“There has been a significant increase in youth violence in both cities,” said Beaufait, who works for Green Teen
(greenteen.org), a community gardening program that uses food as a way of teaching social and job skills to children in
Poughkeepsie. “To be a positive force in troubled communities, you have to get youth involved in organizations that provide
alternatives through hands-on experiences. Learning about food, farming, entrepreneurship and health is a way to do that
which goes beyond just analyzing the problem.”
The documentary, titled “Rampage,” offered a compelling look into a culture of violence in one impoverished Miami
neighborhood, where bitterness over a lack of social and economic opportunities paradoxically leads its inhabitants into
endless turf wars over territory, drugs and perceived insults.
Gritty film
Viewed through the lens of the lives of three brothers, one of whom was killed during the course of the filming, the work
offers an unexpectedly broad perspective on the conflicts of our time – another brother is an Iraq war veteran who is called
back to duty at the end of the story. Australian filmaker George Gittoes met him while doing another documentary on rap
music used as a coping mechanism by American soldiers in Iraq, and had followed him home upon being told, “The part of
Miami I come from is as tough as Baghdad.”
Discussing the film afterward and relating it to their own lives, the mainly African-American and Hispanic teens at the
conference spoke in tones of disturbance at what they had seen and experienced.
“Humans are naturally born to fight”, said NeQuan Hamilton, 17, of Poughkeepsie. “You see it in Iraq and Miami, you see it
if you look back in the history books, going back to the Bible.”
“Is that something you’re OK with?” Sisson, who works for the United Teen Equality Center (utec-lowell.org) in Lowell on
projects similar to those of Green Teen, asked the group.
“You don’t have to live that way”, responded Genelle Cummings, 17, of Poughkeepsie. “You can choose. People who come
Untitled Page http://www.theweeklybeat.net/2007/02/09/pouyouthconference...
1 of 2 3/9/09 11:43 PM

2. from hardened ghettoes go to school and make something of their lives. Saying that we’re ‘born to fight’ is just an excuse –
the people in the film don’t want to try peaceful ways.”
Throughout the day such ways were explored, as the teens, all of whom are active in Green Teen or UTEC, compared their
experiences in trying productive nonviolence as an alternative to confrontation and despair. All exhibited a profound interest
in the presentation made by two local youths who explained their project of making and selling salsa, from growing the
ingredients of the sauce themselves to marketing the finished product.
“You do have a choice,” Derek Mitchell, a UTEC coordinator, told the teens at the end of the conference. “You have chosen
to be in this room. You can communicate these more positive messages of alternatives to others.”
Untitled Page http://www.theweeklybeat.net/2007/02/09/pouyouthconference...
2 of 2 3/9/09 11:43 PM