AUGUSTA ? More than 680 students and advisors from 65 schools across 15 of Maine?s 16 counties will gather to discuss bias, harassment based on skin color, national origin, ancestry, religion, disabilities, gender, and sexual orientation at a day long, statewide conference hosted by Maine?s Civil Rights Team Project (CRTP) at the Augusta Civic Center on Friday, May 18, 2018.
Attorney General Janet T. Mills whose office leads the school-based prevention program, will kick off the conference. The day?s events include student-facilitated workshops from the Holbrook Middle School and Narraguagus Jr./Sr. High School civil rights teams, student presentations highlighting civil rights team accomplishments, sharing of work from the CRTP visual arts and writing contest winners, and a celebratory conclusion featuring music from the Maine Gay Men?s Chorus.
For the first time, the CRTP will be streaming parts of the conference via Facebook Live, including the event kick off with Attorney General Mills starting at 9:30 am.
Shay Stewart-Bouley, award winning Maine blogger and Executive Director of Community Change, Inc. will be the conference?s featured guest. She will lead middle and high school student participants in ?Authentic Dialogues: Talking about Racism and How to Take a Stand Against Hate.? Stewart-Bouley has received local and regional accolades for her writing on race on her Black Girl in Maine (BGIM) blog.
Additionally, students will be given the opportunity to participate in The Race Card Project: a worldwide project that solicits six word stories describing condensed observations and experiences about race.
This is the 22nd year of the Civil Rights Team Project, and the third consecutive year the group has held their end-of-year conference. The students attending the conference are participants in their local school-based civil rights teams.
?Every student should feel safe, welcome, and respected in our school communities,? said Brandon Baldwin, CRTP Project Director. ?That?s why we think and talk about race and skin color, national origin and ancestry, religion, disabilities, gender, gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation. If we?re not having those conversations in our school communities, we?re not really providing an environment where every student feels safe, welcome, and respected.?
WHO: Students from 65 Maine schoolsJanet T. Mills, Attorney GeneralShay Stewart-Bouley, award winning blogger, Black Girl in MaineWHAT: Maine?s Civil Rights Team Project year end annual conference
WHEN: Friday, May 18, 2018