On June 19, Community Services Unlimited, Inc, hosted a RIC regional conference.  RIC Advisory Committee youth member Lawrence DeFreitas posted this report.

RIC/CSU Volunteer Day/Regional Gathering

 Date: 6//19/10

 Youth Present: 15 local Manual Arts High School students, and 2 CSU youth

 Objective: To get local youth familiar with the RIC network and its importance through understanding and talking and sharing about challenges in their community.

 Summary: We started the day with an opening circle about what CSU is and what we do, and described what they would be doing throughout the day. Before going out to work on the farm we did a quick icebreaker exercise and went to work.

 After working in the farm we moved on to an activity where we split into 2 groups to talk about issues/problems/or challenges in the community. We brainstormed these lists of challenges and then turned them into statements that expressed these issues. Afterwards we used these statements as prompts for a Theatre of Oppressed exercise.

The two groups came up with their own expressive scene/scenario and each took a turn acting them out letting each group analyze the other groups scene to recognize what issue they feel is being expressed and change up what they feel needs to be adjusted in the scenario to make the situation better, just like what was done at the last Real Fooders gathering at the Kellogg conference. Afterwards the groups got to share what they were expressing and what they through they were trying the change in the scenes.

After the workshop I got all their emails and did a closing circle and then let them know that I would be sending them the RIC facebook link for them to become a part of the network.

Reflection/Closing Circle: The day went pretty good, even though I wanted there to be more people and more youth. I thought it was good for the youth to discuss what they feel are issues in their neighborhood and then writing them down to use them in the Theatre of the Oppressed exercise. It gave me a chance to use the exercise as a way to show how RIC brings youth together to share challenges that are in their different communities and sharing solutions and suggestions and what steps they are taking to address those issues. It was cool to talk to them about how there are other organizations and youth around the country that do the same work we do. Overall everyone got a good description of what RIC is and does and a good majority expressed interest in being a part of the RIC network and will be sent the RIC facebook link this week.