PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. – One hundred and sixty students signed up and attended this year’s Minority Institute of Leadership and Excellence (M.I.L.E.) Conference. A conference designed to train, build, and challenge our youths through lessons on learning leadership characteristics and navigating obstacles that may arise from being a person of color.
On March 6, 2024, from 8 a.m.-1:30 p.m., the M.I.L.E. Conference was held at the College of Southern MD in Prince Frederick for Calvert County Public High School students. In 2017, CBW, CCPS, and CSM collaborated on this event thus creating the first M.I.L.E. community collaborative in-person event for Calvert County minority students since 2019.
In 2024, a collaborative partnership with CCPS, CSM, and the community greatly contributed to the planning and execution of this event for our youth once again. “This conference is a continuation of the mission and vision of Concerned Black Women (CBW) of Calvert County to educate and prepare our youths in the areas of finance, education, and life as they pursue their lifelong goals,” says Sinetra Bowdry, CBW’s President.
CBW’s M.I.L.E. Co-chairs Nicole Cooksey and Dr. LeTea Perry said, “This year’s theme is about what makes your TikTok? A play on words in referencing the popular social media app and inquiring what makes high schoolers behave in particular ways. Classes focused on training students not to live for the ‘likes,’ but learn other ways to gain self-confidence and self-discovery without allowing the ‘likes’ to be a driving factor for success.” Cooksey and Perry further indicated, “Our goal is for the students to really check in with themselves on how far they have come (surviving Covid and beyond) and what direction they want to go next. What makes them tick feeds into the answer to these questions.”
CCPS’ Superintendent, Dr. Andraé Townsel gave a compelling message of inspiration as Dr. Crystal Ricks CCPS’ Supervisor, Gifted & Talented Education, Articulation, STEM & MESA, Robotics Competition was instrumental in helping to collaborate with CCPS. Six sessions were featured and many community partners from around the DMV taught classes. The students chose three sessions which allowed them the opportunity to choose classes to help navigate their conversations and life lessons for the future. The sessions were named with the help from students using their jargon.
Sessions such as: “Don’t Read The Comments,” “I’m In My Bag: How To Network Your Net Worth,” “How To Protect Your Peace When Life is Lifing,” and “Six Figure Careers In Stem: How To Create Motion To Increase Your Drip” were well attended by students throughout the conference. “Without CCPS, CSM, and our community partners, this event would not have been a success,” stated Sinetra Bowdry, CBW’s President.
We need an event like this for our youth so that they can build a sense of community through a day of cultural and diverse topics, learn empowering skills, leadership characteristics, and how to navigate obstacles that may arise from being a person of color. We operate this conference solely on donations providing breakfast, lunch, and entertainment to the attendees for a well-rounded cultural experience.
To become a partner, and to see our M.I.L.E. community partners, please visit www.concernedblackwomen.org. We look forward to next year’s conference being even bigger.
Discrimination
Really? Is this an event you were interested in? And did they not allow you to attend? That’s about the only way it could have been discriminatory.
Amazing as always! This event is so needed.