UniTown
UniTown Leadership RetreatCommunityNashville, founded in 1927 as The National Conference of Christians and Jews, is a human relations organization dedicated to fighting bias, bigotry and racism. CommunityNashville works to empower young people to confront issues that divide their homes, schools and communities. In addition to CommunityNashville's signature youth leadership and development program AnyTown, CommunityNashville also has MiniTown, OurTown and UniTown.
What Is UniTown?
UniTown is a three-day residential leadership retreat that provides students with the opportunity to cross barriers that often divide them in their schools and to have honest and open dialogue around stereotypes and biases related to race, class, gender, sexual orientation and other traits that differentiate people from one another. UniTown empowers students to form strong relationships with peers from all backgrounds and to eliminate prejudice, bias and inequalities found in their school and community.
What Does UniTown Do?
UniTown exposes high school students of a specific high school to an intense human relations experience, self esteem building and leadership education in a non-classroom environment. The program engages youth in purposeful, goal-directed dialogue to increase their awareness of the development of attitudes and behaviors that contribute to bias, bigotry, prejudice, discrimination and racism. Further, UniTown trains faculty and administrators in facilitation skills and in working with students according to best practices in youth empowerment and service learning models.
How Does UniTown Benefit My School?
UniTown provides a safe environment that allows students to individually and at their own pace to:
- Learn about prejudice and discrimination and how these attitudes and behaviors cause violence
- Achieve greater understanding and respect for oneself and others through interactions with persons of different religions, races and cultures
- Appreciate the power of self acceptance and the acceptance and appreciation of differences
- Develop personal and conflict resolution skills needed to help solve individual and group problems in human relations, and
- Create an action plan to carry the message of acceptance and appreciation of differences.
What Are The Goals Or Objectives Of UniTown?
The ultimate goals of UniTown are to establish emerging student leaders and to equip them with skills to make their school environment more inclusive, tolerant and safe. This goal is achieved by setting daily goals and objectives for the students.
The objectives for Day One are to establish a trusting community; begin a dialogue with one another; learn team building skills; and practice principles of conflict resolution. The objectives for Day Two are to begin exploring our identities as members of different groups (based on ethnicity, culture, race, beliefs, etc.); explore how being members of these groups affects who we are, our values and how we communicate and perceive others; recognize the impact and consequences of stereotyping and "isms" on personal identity, interpersonal relationships and social structures; and understand how to challenge and confront oppression and build inclusion at personal, interpersonal and systemic levels. The objectives for Day Three are to reinforce messages of respect for diversity and inclusion; identify human relations issues within a school community; develop skills and tools for assessment of school environment; form a multicultural team to affect change within a school; and implement steps for changing the school environment.
What Happens After UniTown?
At its core, UniTown is about creating a positive support network for diverse students and to create leaders. After UniTown, this network is further nurtured by (1) supporting students in the planning of a significant event at their school (i.e., Diversity Week, Students for Peace Rally, Health Fair, etc.); (2) reserving a number of spots for the students to attend other CommunityNashville youth programs - MiniTown, AnyTown; (3) providing membership opportunities on CommunityNashville's Youth Advisory Council; (4) providing membership opportunities on a school youth diversity council; and (5) providing collaboration opportunities with other community organizations such as STARS, MPHD and OASIS Center.