Feminism & Social Justice Youth Summit

Empowerment! Voice! Health! Activism!

For grrls, transgender and gender non-conforming youth, ages 12-14

June 8-9, 2019 Saturday-Sunday, 9am-5pm

Fee: $150 or PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN, includes healthy lunch & snacks

Full scholarships are also available. Email your request to: Tina@KorePress.org

PLEASE REGISTER ONLINE. If you are paying, you may do that online or at the door.

The Youth Summit is held at the beautiful CITY Center for Collaborative Learning location / 37 E. Pennington, Tucson 85701, our space sponsor.

Join Kore Press Institute’s first ever Feminism & Social Justice Youth Summit on June 8 & 9 for an immersive two days of intersectional explorations, transgenerational conversations, connections, growing, and learning with intentional community support. Small group experiences include facilitated reflection, nurturing self-care options, voice development, and inspired learning and exploration of issues important to grrls, trans and gender non-conforming 12-14 yr olds. Led by a diverse team of passionate, dynamic, and skilled artists, inclusive educators, and talented community leaders dedicated to youth empowerment at the intersections of gender, race, and love.

The days open with interactive panels of engaged community activists and high school students, followed by small group explorations of such topics as LGBTQ+ 101, Sexuality & Consent, Telling Your Story, Yoga/Reflective Practices, Listening, Anti-Racism, Media Literacy, Self-Care and creative expression. Participants will have a chance to share stories, nourish themselves, think and explore together in a supportive, safe and kind space. Healthy and delicious food provided.

The Summit is designed for 12-14 year old / middle school grrls, trans and GNC youth.

Complete the registration to reserve a spot; you can pay on line or at the door when you arrive to the Summit on June 8. Request a full scholarship simply by sending an email to Tina@KorePress.Org.

The Youth Summit was developed collaboratively between Stephanie Troutman and Lisa Bowden for Kore Press Institute. Contact Tina@KorePress.Org for information on bringing a KPI Youth Summit to your space.

Proceeds go toward paying facilitators and to a Summit scholarship fund. Kore Press Institute is an independent literary arts and justice organization dedicated to keeping the margins in the center through literature, education, and community engagement.

The Summit Facilitator & Speaker Crew

Dr Stephanie Troutman, Summit leader, is a Black feminist scholar, first-generation college student, tenured Associate Professor of Emerging Literacies in the Rhetoric, Composition and Teaching of English program in the English Department at the University of Arizona. She received a dual PhD in Curriculum & Instruction and Women’s Studies from the Pennsylvania State University in 2011, and is a former high school and middle grades public school teacher. Stephanie is a scholar-activist who has been widely recognized for her mentorship, student advocacy, and social justice leadership.

Teré Fowler Chapman, Teré is a gender fluid writer, educator and former assistant principle in Tucson—by way of sonoran desert | by way of boot’s bayou. This poet is the Words on the Avenue founder and the first African American executive director of the Tucson Poetry Festival. They are a National Arts Strategies’ Creative Community fellow, and a “Bettering American Poetry 2016” nominee. They are an educator, a wife, and a family man. You can find Teré or their work forthcoming or published in many places, including Huffington Post, University of Arizona’s VOCA, TEDxTucson, Tucson Weekly, Arizona Public Media’s PBS & NPR & more.

Em Bowen is the Executive Director of the Tucson Poetry Festival, a bilingual Waldorf educator, a storyteller, a writer, an essayist, a poet and a person who thrives and is always changing (much as we all are, whether we realize it or not). Their work has been published in the Tucson Weekly, The Atlantic, Zocalo, Wild Gender, The Feminist Wire, and most recently live on the stand-up comic stages of Tucson. Em earned their MFA from Goddard College and is the former producer of the Tucson Gender Identity Project.

Kristen E. Nelson is a queer writer and performer, literary activist, LGBTQ+ activist, and community builder. She is the author of the length of this gap (Damaged Goods, 2018) two chapbooks: sometimes I gets lost and is grateful for noises in the dark (Dancing Girl, 2017) and Write, Dad (Unthinkable Creatures, 2012), and is published in numerous journals. Kristen is the founder of Casa Libre en la Solana, a non-profit writing center in Tucson, where she worked as the Executive Director for 14 years. She Earned her MFA in Creative Writing, her BA in English Literature teaches Personal Narrative Essay Writing, Text/Image Collaborations, and Divinatory Poetics.

Eugenia Woods is a queer-identified clinical social worker and theatre artist applying arts-based community engagement practices to identify issues of common concern, share voice and initiate social action. Her community-devised, interdisciplinary performance works include: Famished, a theatrical documentary on our relationship to food; The Migration Project, an interactive performance developed with immigrant, indigenous and refugee communities, and her most recent work, HARK, a performance installation addressing political polarization and social isolation through mindful listening. She holds a BS in Film from Boston University and an MS in Social Work from Columbia University

Lexy Reyelts (she/they) (she/they) is a recent graduate of the University of Arizona with her B.S. in Public Management & Policy. During their time at the UA, Lexy served as the Co-Director for Pride Alliance and worked with the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, Women & Gender Resource Center, and Housing & Residential Life to design and facilitate trainings and workshops related to LGBTQ+ inclusion, identity, and power and privilege. Lexy is currently a field organizer for Defend Our Future.

Sarah Maaske (she/they) is a queer yoga instructor in the stolen and occupied land known as Tucson, Arizona. They have been providing a trauma-aware approach and safe space for LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies to practice yoga since 2017. Sarah’s background in social work, identity as a queer person, and passion for social justice are woven into all aspects of their work. Sarah received their Master’s in Social Work from Arizona State University in 2014 and their 200-hour yoga teaching certification from The Yoga Connection in 2014.

Karlyn Bradley is a Radical, Queer, Black Femme, Feminist. They have worn many hats during his time as an organizer which have included Student Assistant in African American Student Affairs (AASA), Intern with the Women’s Resource Center’s The Men’s Project, Safezone Facilitator and Co-Director of Diversity and Inclusion for The Associated Students of the University of Arizona. Through these various groups and others he has been able to use and expand his knowledge of Feminist Theory to create programming that educates and empowers folks around topics of Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation and Power Dynamics. Their studies in Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies have also shaped and influenced his ability to understand, critique and analyze policy through a critical race feminist lense. Karlyn hopes to obtain a Graduate Level Degree in Gender and Women's Studies and Law and continue doing community organizing work. When they are not doing Community work Karlyn likes to hang out with their friends, write poetry, draw and watch Scandal. Karlyn is Southern California
native currently residing in Tucson, Arizona.

Community Panelists:

Dr. Deanna Lewis, DrPH, MBA, PA-C, is passionate about public health, which she attributes to her 20 years in the fire service. At the age of 21, Deanna made history as the first woman firefighter in the history of the Tucson Fire Department. A graduate of Stanford’s Primary Care Associate Program, Deanna has been a physician assistant for 15 years, served seven years in the Navy Reserve as a Hospital Corpsman, has an MBA from the Eller School of Management, completed two years as a UA/NASA Space Grant Fellow, and received her doctor of public health in 2018 from the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

E. Liane Hernandez is the Education Director of Stand Together Arizona Training and Advocacy Center (STAT) of the YWCA Southern Arizona in Tucson, where she works at building coalitions, producing events around justice, sustainability, feminism and advocacy, as well co-producing inclusion trainings, videos and social media content around civic engagement. She oversees the arts programming of the Center, helps to facilitate the Advocacy Education Board Committee and coordinates the ongoing Changemaker Race to Justice Book Club. She is a convener and works to create space for individuals and organizations to do the work of inclusive community building. Trained as an art historian, chef and cultural anthropologist she is a student of the questions of what is community, who gets to participate and how.

Grace Gámez runs the ReFraming Justice Project as the Program Coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee, where she works to position directly impacted people to challenge models of justice that are rooted in punishment towards ones that embrace radical community-making and healing. Dr. Gámez is a 2018 “Lead with Conviction” fellow with JustLeadershipUSA, a published author, researcher, and public speaker. She holds a Ph.D. in Justice Studies from Arizona State University and a Master of Science degree in Mexican American Studies & Public Health from the University of Arizona.