For Immediate Release        April 11, 2005

Media Contacts: Yi Chin Chen                                 Dinanyili Paulino             Jorge Sanchez
617-524-8303 ext.303                  617-442-4299 ext.16      617-304-8086

 

Discovering Your Future: Siempre Palante

A city-wide college and career conference for youth

 

Hyde Square Task Force and Sociedad Latina, two leading youth organizations in Boston, are partnering with the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) of Northeastern University to present the Discovering Your Future: Siempre Palante! Conference that will debut on Sunday, April 24, 2005 from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM at the Curry Student Center of Northeastern University. The conference will feature Mr. Richard Harris, Director of Multicultural Engineering at Northeastern University, as the keynote speaker, followed by career panel workshops, a summer job and college fair, and ending with a showcase of local youth talents.

 

Academic achievement is among the biggest challenges of the predominantly low-income and minority youth, particularly for Boston’s minority students. Across the city, the MCAS scores for Black and Latino students are consistently lower than the average in every subject and at every grade level. For many, these struggles lead to a sense of hopelessness regarding the future, discouraging long-term ambitions and instead encouraging youth to drop out altogether. In fact, according to a recent report by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, Massachusetts has the second-worse high school completion rates for Black and Latino students in the country: only 49% of Black students and 36% of Latino students entering ninth grade will graduate in four years.

 

Through the Discovering Your Future: Siempre Palante! Conference, a unique collaboration between Northeastern University and two award-winning youth organizations, we hope to encourage youth to explore all possible educational and career opportunities that are available to them. In this way, we hope to inspire them to continue with their education and training. At the conference, participating youth will have a chance to speak to successful local professionals and learn about their personal experiences, as well as to meet with local college representatives, in a fun and supportive atmosphere. We hope to attract approximately 250 youth from the City of Boston on the day of the conference.

 

For photo-op opportunity and event coverage, please contact the media contacts listed above.

 

Attachments:

Event Flyer

Sponsoring Agencies’ Descriptions

 

Hyde Square Task Force is a community-based non-profit that has engaged youth and their families in the Hyde/Jackson Square community of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury for the past 15 years. The mission of the Task Force is to build the skills of youth and adult residents so that they are empowered to enhance their own lives and build a strong, vibrant urban community. Currently, the Hyde Square Task Force serves over 700 youth and their families on a regular basis in several award-winning and nationally recognized youth development, after-school, literacy, cultural/arts, recreation, and community organizing programs for children, teens and their parents. A recent edition of The Boston Educator stated the Task Force and our partnerships with local public schools “is fast becoming a model of the ways that a school and community can work together to improve the lives of everyone in the neighborhood.” In last year’s United Way of Massachusetts Bay promotion materials it was stated that Task Force is a “cutting edge” agency with “innovative after-school and youth development programs.”

 

Sociedad Latina, founded in 1968, is a community-based, non-profit organization providing a comprehensive, community responsive, array of programs designed to empower youth and their families. For more than 35 years, Sociedad Latina has helped thousands of at-risk youth to resist substance abuse, crime, violence, dropping out of school, and many other hazards associated with poverty and inner city life. Its vital out-of-school-time programs offer health education, peer leadership training, life/work skills development, homework assistance, sports involvement, safe social/recreational activities, and one-to-one counseling/social services with an overall goal of helping the most at-risk youth to make healthy choices and complete high school. As part of the holistic approach to programming, Sociedad Latina also works and supports parents to gain leadership skills, become advocates for their children, family and community, and enhance computer literacy skills.

 

Latin American Student Organization (LASO) of Northeastern University was founded in 1988 and originally was called the Puerto Rican Student Organization. However, due to the increasing diversity of the Latino/a population at Northeastern University, the students felt a need to change the name of the organization so that it was inclusive of all the Latinos on campus. In 1990, the Puerto Rican Student Organization changed its name to the Latin American Student Organization. Since then, the organization has had a beautiful array of multi-cultural people from all around South and Central America, the Caribbean, and many non-Latinos become members. This diverse group of people are unified by an organizational mission- Dedicated to the advancement of our culture and preservation of our identity. LASO continues to serve the Northeastern University and surrounding communities through its cultural, educational, political, social, and community service focus.