Eight Local Teens Travel to Prague for YMCA Europe Festival

By Jennifer Mejia.

Eight teens representing the Merrimack Valley YMCA are on their way home from the 2013 YMCA Europe Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. The teenagers from Lawrence and Andover took an 8-day trip to Prague to join 10,000 young people at the YMCA Europe Festival, the largest international gathering of YMCA youth.

While in Prague, the teens expanded their global perspective, strengthened cultural competencies, and developed leadership skills while connecting with teens from around the world. They participated in challenging workshops on youth-focused topics, and celebrated the strength and diversity of the global Y family during performances and group activities. The Festival is intended to challenge young people to make sense of the world we live in locally, nationally and globally.

The U.S. delegation to Prague also included two local YMCA Change Agents, Jennifer Mejia and Amanda Nieman.  The Change Agent Program is an exciting worldwide effort coordinated by the World Alliance of YMCAs to develop a new generation of globally minded young adult leaders.  Two of only 30 U.S. YMCA Change Agents, Jennifer and Amanda took part in the leadership track at the Festival. They will play a key role in bringing global strategies and best practices back home to our local communities.

“I look forward to the establishment and development of new skills, knowledge, and experiences that will allow me to maximize my impact on the diverse and unique set of communities our organization serves every single day,” said Jennifer Mejia, Marketing Manager at the Merrimack Valley YMCA.

In 2012, the Merrimack Valley YMCA was one of 30 YMCAs, out of more than 900 YMCAs in the nation, named as a YMCA Global Center of Excellence, and in sending a youth delegation to Prague this summer and selecting two Change Agents to represent our YMCA and community, is supporting a comprehensive “Diversity and Inclusion” initiative.     

In order to help fund this experience of a lifetime in Prague Czech Republic, all eight teens held several fundraising initiatives, including a car wash, Sweat for a Cause challenge, raffle calendar, penny wars and cookbooks sales.  For more information or to donate to support future youth trips, please contact Kate Rozzi at 978-725-6681 ext. 130.  You can also follow the teens’ experience in Prague on the Merrimack Valley YMCA facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/mvymca.