Our ‘Season of Hope’: Conference Moves Students to Take Action

by Marla Bertagnolli
Global Solutions Quarterly
Winter 2006

“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us . . .” – George Eliot

Citizens for Global Solutions Annual Conference in Santa Fe demonstrated that we should indeed be hopeful about our nation’s youth. Previous conferences saw only limited involvement from young adults. This year, however, more than one-third of the 400 attendees were students, many of whom traveled from around the country. These dedicated community activists showed an eagerness to be involved and have their voices heard. Moreover, they illustrated that recent organizational outreach campaigns aimed at engaging young people on our issues are working.

Seth Green, CGS Board Member and founder of the student group Americans for Informed Democracy, put it best, when he said: “The conference really energized our members about their role to locally take action to make a difference globally. Over the weekend, students came to realize the importance of cooperative U.S. policies to stop global warming, prevent nuclear proliferation and end poverty. They also learned the tools to take action to make their vision for the U.S. role in the world possible. They left educated and empowered.”

One of the students attending the conference, Brittany Richeson of Texas Tech University, wrote the following column for her school’s newspaper The Daily Toreador. Brittany, a senior majoring in psychology with a minor in social work and sociology, felt compelled to use the information, knowledge and knowhow provided at the conference in order to work locally on a global issue. Contributing Writer: Marla Bertagnolli Conference Moves Students to Take Action The conference really energized our members about their role to locally take action to make a difference globally. Over the weekend, students… learned the tools to take action to make their vision for the U.S. role in the world possible.