“It was amazing!” declared sixth grader AliJah Clark of his experience at the Middle School Students of Color Conference in East Providence, RI, on March 5. One of the workshops AliJah attended was called “How to Build a Million Dollar Business,” which, he said, “was really about the importance of perseverance.”
Workshop presenter Arnell Milhouse, founder and executive director of IntraCity Geeks in Providence, which works to equalize opportunities in technology, said that “we should never give up on our dreams. I was so inspired,” said Alijah, whose own dream is to become a video game designer.
AliJah’s classmate Ishan Narra, another of the nine Fenn sixth and seventh graders who attended the conference, said a workshop that particularly interested him was about bias in healthcare. “It was about how doctors and other medical people can be racially biased, which can affect a patient in a good or a bad way, such as when a translator isn’t available to help a non-English speaking patient,” Ishan said.
AliJah and Ishan were also inspired by the keynote speakers, they said, including Bren Bataclan, an artist who creates paintings and leaves them in public places all over the world with a note attached that says “This painting is yours to keep as long as you promise to smile at random people more often.” Ishan loved Bataclan’s message, he said. AliJah enjoyed Milhouse’s keynote, in which the entrepreneur described his impoverished childhood and his climb to success in the computer science field.
The conference was titled “Ignite the Spark, Seize the Moment: Discovering passions in the arts, science, technology, social and environmental justice, developing leadership skills, and taking action to make connections, learn more, take risks, and have fun.” Other Fenn boys who attended with Director of Diversity Tete Cobblah, Assistant Director Jenn Youk See, and Diversity Associate Kofi Obeng were Shree Khanolkar, Nathan Edwards, Matty Shields, Edward Myers, Reid Geckle, Degafe McCracken-Bradley, and Fru Nkimbeng.