More than 250 students attend Girls of Color Summit at GVSU

Over 250 middle and high 学校ers gathered the morning of March 3 for the fifth annual Girls of Color Summit in Kirkhof Center.

Some of them traveled from as far as Detroit, including Taniya Perkins, who woke up at 5 a.m. to make it to her 学校 bus on time. She and La’Shae Horne are high 学校 students at University Preparatory Academy in Detroit and were attending the summit for the 第一次. 

The program, hosted by the Center for Women and 性别平等 (CWGE) was broken up into multiple breakout sessions throughout the day, with one track of three sessions for middle 学校, and one for high 学校. After the first session, the entire group gathered together for lunch, where students were asked about what they had learned so far.

Horne, along with many others, touched on intersectionality, saying that it was nice meeting “a lot of black people and brown people to talk about the experiences that we share.”

Nya Neal, an 8th grader from City High Middle School in Grand Rapids, had just come from a session focusing on self-love. 她说她 liked getting to hear from all the different types of people, and to learn about their versions of self-love. 

The central theme of this year’s summit was Standing in Your Truth. Keynote speaker, Tashuna Hunt, adjunct professor at GVSU and a licensed social worker, focused on this as she spoke, sharing her own story.

“For so long I’d never seen professors or teachers that looked like 亨特说. “I attended Grand Valley for my graduate degree, and for the 第一次, I had several professors that actually looked like me.”

That, Hunt said, was what inspired her to teach. 她做到了!”她 called for the room to repeat in a rousing chorus. “我也能做到.” 

Many of the facilitators for this event were community activists, graduate 学校 organizations, and members of the BIPOC community, according to Lariesha Lee, assistant director of the CWGE.

One of the goals for this summit was to provide opportunities to learn about activism, allyship, and leadership. 还有一个重点 on solidarity, said Lee, amongst BIPOC and their allies, returning to that theme of intersectionality. Coming together, “not only in times of despair, but times like this of celebration as well. 这很重要.”