Inspirational Trip to Albany for Peer Educators

On Monday March 15th, PFY partnered with Planned Parenthood of Nassau County to take 11 of our peer educators to Albany for an annual Youth Leadership Conference. The conference focused on promoting comprehensive sex-education in New York State schools and was sponsored by Family Planning Advocates (FPA) of New York State. We were 11 of about 300 teens that attended the conference located at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center. The morning started at a very early 5:30am for our peer educators and two dedicated staff members Jill Estes and Galo Cunto. Once we were on the bus, sleepy eyes turned into excited eyes as we neared our states capital! Our kids got the opportunity to participate in advocacy related workshops titled “Know Your Rights”, “Advocacy 101”, “Now What? After high school and beyond” and “Organizing and Social Change”. While we were all eating the wonderful lunch provided to us, we had the opportunity to listen to the Keynote speaker Bianca Laureano. Bianca Laureano is a sexologist, an educator and lifetime activist. Her inspiring personal speech helped open the minds of many of the conference attendees. She spoke about her life as an activist and how it all started with her parents being strong activists. Through her stories, she gave the kids tools to take out in the world for their own activism endeavors. Later in the day the kids also had the opportunity to talk to our states legislators about issues that mean a lot to them and their peers. Such issues included school budget cuts, human and civil rights, and changes they would like to see in their communities. We all learned a lot that day and were very grateful for the opportunity to learn so many valuable skills at the Youth Leadership Conference! We would like to thank Family Planning Advocates of New York State (FPA), Planned Parenthood of Nassau County and all of the amazing speakers that made this day possible. Family Planning Advocates of NYS www.fpaofnys.org