SMART Youth's Open Mic Night!

Our final event of World AIDS week is The Youth Speak the Truth- SMART Youth's Open Mic Night. Youth are invited to come and share ideas through word, music, and dance!

As always, there will be great talent and delicious food. See you there!

World AIDS Week Event- How to Survive a Plague

SMART Youth is always looking for ways to get involved in the community. SMART Youth is looking forward to partnering with NYU's Nursing Students for Global Health and the Black Student Nurses Association in honor of World AIDS Day!

Please join us for a screening of How To Survive A Plague, followed by a panel discussion. Hope to see you there!

World AIDS Week Events- Cafecito & Viva El Barrio!

In honor of World AIDS Day, SMART Youth wanted to be a resource for the community. We have many great activities planned throughout the first week of December. We are excited to partner with students from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine to help us spread awareness of HIV/AIDS! We always enjoy being a supportive resource for the community. Check out these two great events below. 

We look forward to seeing you! 

SMART Youth Invites You to Our Visioning Workshop

SMART Youth is excited to invite you to come to our up-coming Visioning Workshops on Thursday, November 21, 2013.  We want your opinions to about how to design our brand-new project, SMART's Mobile Cooking Classroom. Below is the flyer detailing the workshop and the time of the youth workshop from 4:30pm-5:30pm.

We are working with Hester Street Collaborative to ensure that residents’ voices will be heard in the design of this project since it is funded through the Participatory Budgeting process in District 8.  All are welcome to attend.

All the sessions will be held at our office space in SCAN LaGuardia (307 East 116th Street).  It would be a great experience to attend the workshop and see how you can be a part of the process!

SMART Youth Calendar November & December 2013

SMART Youth is excited to share our November and December calendar. You are invited to come by and join us for any of our meetings.  See you soon!

Making Connections- How to Network Successfully

On Friday, November 1^st, we had a workshop about networking. Networking involves interacting with other people to exchange information and develop contacts.  SMART Youth learned about the importance of networking both in advocacy and in our future career paths.  Plus, we learned new skills to use when connecting with others! Here are just a few of the things we learned:

1. Networking is about making a genuine connection with another person. It isn’t always about using someone or a connection for your own benefit.
2. Giving off a good first impression is important. To give a good impression, make sure you introduce yourself first, have a firm hand shake, and have good eye contact.
3. Nonverbal communication is just as important as verbal communication! Your body language can say a lot about you! 
4. Before going to an event or meeting, know your goals for meeting other people. 

We also did role-plays to practice our skills. In the coming months SMART Youth leaders will put their skills to practice at community events. We are ready to go out and meet others and share the important work that SMART Youth does in the community!

Honey, May I...?

Here is the basic break down of CONSENT.
It seems to be something that is lacking in our society now-a-days.
No one likes to check in with people anymore for fear of "breaking the mood."
But I think miscommunication later can kill a mood even more.
When sexual consent is not clear or taken into consideration, even more traumatizing things can happen!

To get you started on logically thinking about consent in your life, here is an awesome video clip about sexual consent:

In an educational skit from NiteStar, this quote always stuck in my mind, "NO may not always mean NO, but NO ALWAYS MEANS STOP!"

No may not always come in the form of NO.

Here are a few ways someone might try to get the point across without actually saying no, but they are all synonymous!
-Back Off! (or some more aggressive language)
-I'm tired tonight.
-Can we just watch a movie?
-I'm not interested.
-You're not my type.
-I'd prefer to do... (some other activity)
-SILENCE
Anything else along those lines. I think we've heard a few in our lifetimes. (You can leave some of your favorite examples in the comments if you'd like!)

I've mentioned a "Yes, No, Maybe" list in previous blogs (Yes, No, Maybe So )
This is a wonderful tool to get to know YOURSELF.
You should never consent to anything unless you feel comfortable. That is the whole point. Know yourself and then other people can get to know you and experience things with you.

This is the main point of consent. To communicate. Body language is too broad of a gesture to make assumptions about.

If you are unsure about anything, JUST ASK. It may be uncomfortable, but at least you will KNOW for CERTAIN. The only time you get a true "Green Light" with consent is if an enthusiastic and unpersuaded "Yes!" is heard.

The only time a "yes" is disregarded is if someone is intoxicated or pressured to changed their mind. This means that the consent was not fully their choice, they couldn't make a complete judgement of their actions, and so forth.

Let us just ingrain this notion into our minds and go forth and have conversations with our partners, friends, and families!

It is a process but will pave the way to a better and clearer future for many!