We are excited to announce the upcoming fall LeadOn Youth Leadership Conference. This year LeadOn will be held October 4-6th in Anchorage, Alaska.

The Valdez LeadOn team had planned in-person activities and events to focus on healthy teen relationships, but when COVID-19 closed the community, they had to adapt their project.

As the young people who are inheriting this island, we are trying to raise awareness and create change, so our island and communities are healthier and safer.

Youth will feel empowered and supported by the community to take action against social, environmental, and daily struggles.

The LeadOn youth recognized how emotionally stressful and disappointing this new context was for those graduating high school. The team came up with a plan to promote healthy outdoor activities for seniors as an alternative to the scheduled indoor dance and graduation celebrations.

The Nenana LeadOn group, PINK, intended to do multiple communities and school presentations, culminating in a high school assembly, to include a second round of “The Zoey Show”, an event structured like a talk show and hosted by a youth, Zoey, who asks questions of positive adults.

For their 2020 community project, the teens from Mentasta Lake Village and Chistochina Village collaborated to allow for multiple events and greater resources for ongoing community learning, connection, support, and fun.

Due to COVID-19, OPT-In was still able to support their community and focus on building cultural identity and community connection by reaching out to elders.

After the 2019 LeadOn Conference, the Ketchikan team focused on educating their peers about the harm of substance misuse, with a particular focus on building social-emotional and coping skills.

The Juneau teens who attended the 2019 LeadOn Conference decided to focus their community project on building healthy relationships and culture through the Native Youth Olympics (NYO).