Press Release:

Life is What You(th) Make It: Youth Summit is planned

May 14, 2013 - New Haven, CT – New Haven youth are planning a Youth Summit, to take place Saturday, May 18 from 12 noon to 6 pm at Hill Regional Career High School on 140 Legion Avenue in New Haven to develop youth leadership skills and resources.

The Summit will feature fun workshops, panel discussions, music, spoken word and open mic as well as small-group conversations on topics chosen by the participants.  Young people will have an opportunity to step to the microphone and share their ideas with the larger group.  Of course, there will be food and fun.

Youth are planning the event. Julie Palladino, a student at Wilbur Cross High School who was a member of last year’s planning group, said, “It’s important for everyone to hear the youth voice. It’s nice to be part of the planning of the Youth Summit because it shows that people know we are an authority on what is going on for us. Teenagers can say in their own words what is important to us and what we want to do about it!”

The goals of the Youth Summit are to provide a "megaphone” so youth voices are heard in the community and raise positive youth visibility. Connecting young people to supports and opportunities will also be a theme of the gathering, with information tables run by representatives of local organizations who partner with youth to help them develop their ideas into actions.

At the event, youth will talk with their peers about what matters to them and brainstorm ideas for next steps they want to take around chosen topics of concern. “We hope to have 30 different programs and schools represented in this event,” said Rachel Heerema, coalition director. “There is a real need in our community to showcase the great things that youth are doing and develop their leadership abilities. This is the next generation and the community wants to support and encourage them.”

Planning for the event has been taking place for several weeks, led by youth involved with local youth leadership organizations including New Elm City Dream, Speak Life, Youth UnLeashed, and the Mayor’s Youth Council. Supporting this youth leadership has been a group of caring adults from these organizations, while the planning meetings have taken place in space made available through the generosity of New Haven Free Public Library.  The sponsors who have made the Youth Summit possible include: The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Start Community Bank, and the Youth Development Training & Resource Center at The Consultation Center as well as G.P.’s Gathering Spot, New Haven Promise, Jennifer Just and Quinnipiac Bank.

It is expected that at least 150 young people will participate in the Youth Summit, and the ideas they generate at the event will be shared with adult decision-makers. To address the issues young people raise, it may be possible to then create new youth-adult partnerships to take youth involvement a step further.

New Haven and area youth between the ages of 13-21 are invited to come out and participate in an afternoon of music, food, and conversation among youth!

Citywide Youth Coalition, Inc. is a network of over 500 youth-serving staff, community stakeholders, and individuals working together to build a courageous community in which all youth can succeed.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/141871038/2013-Youth-Summit-Flyer

Contact: Rachel Heerema (203) 464-7838 rachel@cwyc.org, Citywide Youth Coalition, Inc.

High School in the Community journalism class interviewed Community Engagement Editor Shahid Abdul-Karim. Special mention to English/journalism teacher Matt Presser for a job well done with students. 

Here is what some students had to say:

By Shainah Andrews

It is not every day that someone delivers a speech that moves a classroom full of high school students. I cannot speak for all but Mr. Shahid Abdul-Karim's words certainly moved ME.

The community engagement editor at the New Haven Register newspaper traces his roots back to Baton Rogue, Louisiana where everyone was "heavily into sports." There were two main colleges and southern hospitality but people "love their sports."

Karim told the classroom of students that he himself didn't grow up saying he wanted to be an editor. Several teenagers can relate to this, often graduating high school and entering college unsure of what to major and minor in. I was taken back a bit when he said that he actually wanted to own a coffee shop! It's not every day that someone says that owning a coffee shop was their dream. The extreme love for caffeine in Louisiana makes Karim's dream profession understandable though.

Although he lives in Hamden

he works in New Haven and described it as a "very unique city" with "a lot of diversity." He added on that is has its "good points and its low points" and that he's become "attracted to New Haven."

When asked if he missed Louisiana and wanted to migrate back, the married father of 2 teenagers gave very inspiring advice. He said that he visits a few times throughout the year but "Change is always good" and that he had "become complacent."

The conversation got a bit personal but also "real" and Karim didn't mind. Seeing that his son was traveling down a path of ultimate self destruction, Karim's father took him overseas with him to Naples, Italy where he lived for some time to try and straighten the young man out. The editor said that those whom he hung around back in the states weren't necessarily positively influential people on him. He knew this and said, "I gotta go in a different direction." Later into the conversation, he voiced, "Don't be scared to make a decision that's gonna be beneficial to your life... Don't be scared to hurt your friend's feelings."

Mr. Karim sometimes does this with his own publications but he was aware of that outcome, saying that you must "have thick skin... Accept the criticism of the job... I knew the back blow." His piece regarding the Sandy Hook school shooting in New Haven, CT getting extreme media and public attention upset some while others agreed with him. This is just one of his works that caused controversy but the wise man said, "There's no boundaries... You don't care if other folks criticize you, you love it."

He now told us that he's glad he went with being an editor because as a coffee shop owner, "I wouldn't be as fulfilled... I'm giving back to the community... That's important to me."

A good note that stuck with me after the class ended was one that I personally can abide by: "Nothing is easy... You're gonna have to have some struggle... You can't give up... Don't give up."

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Marisa Misbach

"Change is always good." Everyone has probably had this said to them at some point in their life. Especially teenagers. Whether it be about them starting high school, moving away to a college, or even starting a new relationship. Their parents, peers, and teachers will tell them that change is a good thing and will help them in the long run. Although we might not always believe them.
One man truly believes this statement. In fact, he was the one who said it. Mr. Shahid Abdul-Karim, a reporter for the New Haven Register, paid a visit to High School in the Community last Friday.
"I think he was very intelligent and inspiring. He showed that going beyond what's expected of you may be scary at first but if you have faith in yourself, everything will fall into place", said sophomore Shainah Andrews. Shainah, as well as the other members of the class, was full o questions and listened very attentively while Shahid talked.
He is the current Community Engagement Editor at the New Haven Register. Although he loves New Haven and says "I see New Haven as a very unique city" and that it has it's "very good points and very low points", Shahid is not originally from New Haven; nor is he from Connecticut. Mr. Abdul-Karim was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
"People in Baton Rouge love their sports", said Shahid. As well as their coffee. According to him, Baton Rouge has its own brand of coffee and as a child his family drank all sorts of coffee, he was always around it.
Coffee was such a big part of his childhood that Shahid told us "I actually wanted to own a coffee shop." He had no intention of becoming an editor. He had no intention of moving to Connecticut.
At a conference in Atlanta, Shahid met his first wife; who was from New Haven. They were soon married and moved to New Haven. He didn't want to go back to Baton Rogue.
It's funny how one simple thing, such as meeting someone at a conference, could change a person's life.
Once Shahid started writing and becoming a journalist, he realized he loved it. He believes that it is very important to give people a voice that don't usually have a voice. Journalism did that for him.
"If this is what you love to do, then there's no boundaries." Even though he is the one of the few blacks at the New Haven Register and the only black editor, Shahid never let it limit him. He always puts 100 percent effort and never lets criticism effect him.
"My advice to teens everywhere is to be yourself and don't allow the influence of your environment dictate how you're going to live...Don't be scared to stand up for yourself."
---

Shauntia Gaines

Shahid Abdul-Karim goes beyond editing and gives HSC students a view of life. He opens the eyes of the 4th period journalism class. Shahid Abdul-Karim is 39 years old from Baton Rouge, Louisiana and is the community engagement editor at the new haven register. He covered the range of things that are personal to talking business.
Mr. Karim, when asked how he sees New Haven, said “I see New Haven as a very unique city there is a lot of diversity in New Haven. It has very good points and very low points as in every other city and by having this job I became attracted to New Haven.”

----

Bryonna Morris

Shahid Abdul-Karim was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Baton Rouge was known for as a big sport city and also a coffee town. He grew up having a love for coffee because coffee was all around him and he actually dreamt of owning his own coffee shop one day or once he got older, he still has the dream.
Shahid is community engaging editor for the new haven register. As a community engaging editor he does varies things such as coming to a high school to talk to high school kids. He went to Springfield, Massachusetts colleges, he went to college for human services and journalism although Shahid could not give a direct statement of what is human services.
When Shahid was a teenager he want to Naples, Italy to travel with his father overseas because he was a bad child or what not, and when he was in Italy that’s when he realized he wanted to change his life around.
Shahid did not want to be a community engaging editor at first he wanted to own a coffee shop. Shaid has been married twice and he has 2 kids. Shahid best talent is that he is a people person, he is not afraid to talk or give speeches, and he writes well.
Shahid stated a quote “if he is not afraid to write it then editors are not afraid to write it” meaning if he is not taken back or afraid to write a story, then is editors are not afraid to publish it. Shahid did an amazing job publicy speaking to us about his life and job and what is like.

By Staff Reporter Rachel Chinapen
@rachelchinapen

In my modest experience in reporting I've done countless phone interviews on sensitive subjects. From asking a single father to open up about his deceased wife, to asking a single mother to open up about her two autistic sons; I've asked a lot of my sources. In my defense, it has typically been because of distance and time constraints.

When I practiced video journalism I realized it wasn't an option to conduct interviews over the phone. Part of what makes video so captivating is the look in a person’s eyes when they talk about something important to them, the crack in their voice when you ask the right question, or the way their eyes wander when they get anxious or uncomfortable.

For print reporters, isn't it an obligation to convey these same emotions to our readers? Aren’t those emotions part of the raw facts we treasure as journalists?

I was working on a story about sex trafficking in Connecticut when I came across Shandra Woworuntu from New York City.

Shandra was trafficked to the United States from Indonesia in 2001. Her traffickers transported her to New London, Connecticut.

Shandra, a college educated woman, held the assistant general manager position at Korean Exchange Bank in Indonesia. Political and economic conflicts in her country forced her to seek new employment.

She responded to a listing for a waitressing position at a hotel in the U.S.

She came here for a brighter future, higher pay and more opportunity. But when she got here, her passport and identification were taken by a company “representative.”

She and a few other girls were driven to a house in New London. She remembers the house was tucked away in a wooded area, far away from any neighbors.

She was forced to perform sexual services for men. She was locked up with no escape. No identification. No phone. She didn’t speak English.

And when she did escape and sought help from police officers, no one believed her story.

She shared many details with me in our phone conversation.

But when she met me with her infectious smile on the busy streets of New York City, I learned so much more.

I learned the story of a young woman who wrote everything down on a notepad she carried, and how those notes later aided in the conviction of her traffickers.

Even before she was trafficked, she said she had this habit of writing everything down.

She showed me how she asked the traffickers for their phone numbers through hand gestures since she didn’t speak English. She didn’t have a phone, but they gave her their numbers.

As we walked through the city, she remembered the subway benches that she slept on when she had no money after her escape.

I saw, firsthand, the distress in her eyes when she spoke about the process of dealing with what happened to her. How difficult it was. What it was like telling her older daughter what happened to her, becoming involved with a significant other, everything.

I saw the genuine hope in her eyes when she spoke about reconnecting with the U.S. Navy member who sheltered her and took her case to the precinct.

She mentioned the Navy member over the phone, but I had no idea how passionate she was about reconnecting. Her eyes lit up and her smile returned when we discussed the possibility of him reading her story and finding her.  Her face shows how thankful she still is.

I could go on at length about my experience with Shandra in the city. She was a pleasure. She wasn’t bitter or angry. She was honest. 

But the point isn’t that she was a pleasure. Or that she introduced me to a killer brownie/coffee spot in the city. The point is that without meeting her in person, I would’ve missed such major parts of her story.

Sure, I can’t use all of what I learned in the city for my story. But without knowing her whole story, how could I even attempt to retell it to our readers?

Maybe I’m old fashion, but I think there’s a need for us to get back to interviewing sources in person. There’s simply more to tell than we’re telling.

Can’t write a complete book report if we only skimmed  three pages of the book.

Flyer NHHO 2013 Banquet (2)

HAAC Health

Tom Wise said,
"As the nation weeps for the victims of the horrific bombing in Boston yesterday, one searches for lessons amid the carnage, and finds few. That violence is unacceptable stands out as one, sure. That hatred — for humanity, for life, or whatever else might have animated the bomber or bombers — is never the source of constructive human action seems like a reasonably close second,"

Read more here (http://www.timwise.org) 

I

By Shahid Abdul-Karim
sabdul-karim@newhavenregister.com / Twitter: @Shahid_Akarim

Members of the SCSU Muslim Student Association

NEW HAVEN — When Marwa Mansour heard about the twin bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, the first thing that came to her mind was, “I hope it’s not blamed on Muslims.”

But some in mainstream media have alluded to this idea.

Mansour, 21, a junior and psychology major at Southern Connecticut State University and president of the Muslim Student Association, said conscious Muslims don’t commit acts of terror or violence.

“Boston was a sad tragedy, and I hoped the bombing would not be blamed on Muslims, because after 9/11 things went downhill for us,” said Mansour, who is a native of Egypt.
“People are against Islam, because they have these stereotypes of all Muslims being terrorist or violent people, and that is not the case,” she said. “We are Muslims Americans and we feel the pain too, but because we cover in America, which is against the odds; we are labeled,”

The word Muslim is defined as one who submits to God, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary.

On Monday, twin bombs at the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded more than 170 and federal officials have said the investigation is ongoing and officially have said there are no known suspects.

After 9/11 Muslims fell under racial and ethnic scrutiny and some Muslims in America have said they are tired of being profiled when the word terror or terrorist is used in the media.

“This is the extreme of profiling and being guilty by association is wrong,” said Ayesha K. Mustafaa, editor of the Muslim Journal.

“People looking for the Muslim element, which is very stereotypical, we need to remove that adjective and look for the terrorist not the Muslim,” Mustafaa said. “In the case of Adam Lanza, they are not going to say Christian terrorist, because they don’t want to demonize their religion. If you demonize one, you have to demonize all, and they are not going to demonize white supremacy groups because they belong to mainstream America.”

World renowned boxing promoter Murad Muhammad said most people in America are not familiar with Islam.

“The masses are not knowledgeable about Islam and because of their ignorance it allows people to condemn Islam, without understanding that everyone in the east that wears a robe, a beard, or a kufi, many of them are not Muslims,” said Muhammad, who promoted Muhammad Ali and Manny Pacquiao. “We don’t say priests who have sex with little boys are all bad, we can’t condemn all Catholics.”

Muhammad also noted that the racial and ethnic profiling most Arab Americans are experiencing, are what African Americans have been challenged with over 400 years.

“What the Arab community is feeling is the pressure of what African Americans and African American Muslims have been going through in this country for years,” he said. “They are the new niggers in America and none of us can escape being a nigger in white America.”

In Boston, officials have confirmed that a pressure cooker was used as the explosive in the attack on Tuesday and President Barack Obama branded the attack an act of terrorism.

Although no known killer or killers have been identified and no chatter on websites of so-called extreme Islamic groups, CNN reported, officials have also noted that pressure cookers are often used in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal — where the pots are more commonly used for cooking. But they have also been prominent in bombings and attempts in the United States, especially in New York in Times Square in 2010 and Grand Central Terminal in 1976, according to news reports.

In Al Qaeda’s online magazine, there’s an article titled: “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom” by “The AQ Chef,” It mentions, even recommends, pressure cookers, noting that weak explosives only work with the high pressure of a cooker or sealed pipe, according to the Associated Press.

Quinnipiac journalism Professor Rich Hanley has said the media should take care in using identifiers.

“The media shouldn’t cherry pick of who they identify in terms of motivation, identity of religion, ethnicity or racial vocabulary,” Hanley, who also is the graduate journalism program director, said earlier this year.

“A person of color or Arab decent tends to be the motivation behind the act of the media; to link religion to a person’s name,” he said earlier this year. “It’s part of the instinct to report that way in the heat of the moment to stereotypes. However, white kids are linked to video games, other consumer products, and the role of movies as opposed to religion,”

But Southern Connecticut State University student Inam Chater, who is Syrian, said she thinks Muslims will always be racially profiled and be called jihadist.

“Whenever you hear Muslim it’s a terrorist, a black or Latino, it’s a gang member, but when it’s someone white, it’s mental illness or disorder,” said Chater, 18, who also is a member of the Muslims Student Association.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations on Tuesday called for Fox news to sever ties with its contributor Erik Rush, after Rush tweeted his “kill them all” comment when asked, about Boston, “Are you already blaming Muslims?” He responded, “Yes, they’re evil. Let’s kill them all.” Rush later deleted his tweet, calling it “sarcasm.” In subsequent tweets, he called critics of the “kill” comment “idiots,” “Islamic apologist worms” and “vermin,” the council said.



“The terrible tweet by TV commentator Erik Rush “Muslims are evil let’s kill them all” should be enough reason not only to fire him but also question him by law enforcement authorities and maybe charge him with trying to incite violence,” said CAIR-CT executive director Mongi Dhaouadi.

“We know for a fact that Muslims in America and some who were perceived to be Muslims were attacked before,” Dhaouadi said. “That statement is irresponsible, and Fox News needs to do something to clean its ranks from Muslim bashers and Islamophobes like Erik Rush,”

Amirah Aulagi, 23, a member of the United Masjid of Waterbury, said as an American Muslim, she takes “offense on the fact that my religion becomes enough reason for suspicion every time a bomb goes off.”

“I feel that we are targeted by both the terrorists who make no distinction between Muslims and other people of faith, and by law enforcement who will direct their attention to me just by the color of my skin or my religious beliefs,” she said.

Call Community Engagement Editor Shahid Abdul-Karim at 203-789-5614.