Nominate a Youth Leader

The Martha's Vineyard Youth Leadership Initiative (MVYLI) has put out a call for nominations for young leaders ages 15 to 20 to serve as delegates to the 2011 Youth Leadership Summit for Sustainable Development.

This year's Youth Leadership Summit will be held June 18 through 24. An orientation will be held on Wednesday, May 4 from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Library Conference Room.

The mission of the MVYLI is to develop the next generation of leaders. Nominees to the Youth Summit attend week-long intensive leadership training, during which time they discuss their personal, professional, Island and planetary goals. They then begin the task of creating action plans for sustainable projects. Faculty include leaders from "Stone Soup for the World: Life-Changing Stories of Everyday Heroes" with Vineyard’s sustainable leaders and youth leaders from other Island youth leadership initiatives. After the Youth Summit, members take a Sustainable Vineyard Tour of innovative projects, programs and organizations on the Island.  

"There is an urgent need to develop young people to become future leaders," said Marianne Larned, executive director of the Stone Soup Leadership Institute. "We need to actively recruit, nurture and develop a new crop of leaders who are educated about the local and global issues facing us, so they can lead for generations to come."

Results of last year's summit included a "Leave-A-Legacy Project,"  for which participants created the first Sustainable Vineyard Map in partnership with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. Their work was then presented at the Walter Cronkite Awards Ceremony, to Senator John Kerry and Governor Deval Patrick’s staff and on WCVB-TV’s "CityLine."

Last year's Youth Summit "broadened my perspective of sustainable development, said 16-year-old Kelsey Dandeneau. "I’m not the farmer type. I want to go into business . . . Even though I may not be planting a tree, I can further my knowledge and how my decisions will affect others lives. 

"At the Youth Summit I met different people who have very different interests . . . As a whole, we can work together to realize the goal of sustainable development . . . The Vineyard could actually become a model for the whole country."                   

MVYLI youth will share their progress during the past year with a new batch of youth at the summit this summer. New attendees will then be trained to become future leaders. Video highlights will be presented at the 2nd Annual Walter Cronkite Awards Ceremony on July 17.

MVYLI youth Emma HallBilsBack, Amoy Anderson, Shawna Brown and Shavanae Anderson are Youth Summit Visioneers/Camp Counselors. 

For more information on the MVYLI and its initiatives, visit the MVYLI website designed by Oscar Thompson at http://www.mvyli.org.

Applications are available on  http://www.mvyli.org/index_files/Page395.htm