FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 19, 2009
Contact: Kate Simmons,Special Assistant to the Maine Attorney GeneralPhone: (207) 626-8577
Attorney General?s Civil Rights Team Project Holds Statewide Conference for Students
AUGUSTA ? Over 1,000 students from across Maine gathered at the Augusta Civic Center today for the Statewide Conference of the Civil Rights Team Project, a effort of the Office of the Attorney General. Representing over 70 schools from across the state, these students celebrated their work on civil rights and learned more about how to combat hate violence, prejudice, harassment and bias in their schools and communities. At the conference, students attended workshops designed to increase their understanding of issues confronting students in Maine schools around bias-based harassment.
Conference attendees each belong to a school-based Civil Rights Team (CRTP) which is a student-led program administered by the Office of the Attorney General and designed to reduce bias and harassment in Maine?s schools. Students from grades 3-12 and their faculty advisors are eligible to participate in the program and can receive training at 15 regional training events held around the state in the fall of each academic year. Over 220 schools in Maine have Civil Rights Teams.
?The students on our CRTP are passionate and committed to creating a school where everyone feels safe even though they are sometimes criticized by their peers for daring to speak up when an injustice is done,? said Colleen Fitzgerald, Faculty Advisor for Old Town High School?s Civil Rights Team. ?They are also incredibly brave. The students simply ask everyone to think before they speak and do everything they can to be respectful of the rights of others to be emotionally and physically safe at school and in the community.?
Civil rights team school projects have included encouraging community leaders and students in Piscataquis county to sign pledges to end prejudice, a summit at Coastal Ridge Elementary School in York on the importance of diversity, leadership, respect and togetherness, a ?Not in Our School? campaign at Etna-Dixmont School to end name calling and publishing an international cookbook in Lewiston Middle School.
Gabriella do Amaral, a member of the Old Town High School Civil Rights Team, said, ?Civil rights teams change the climate in schools. It can be really meaningful when students and teachers know people who inform them about social justice issues. The school becomes a safer place and people change the way they treat others. Differences should not stop anyone from receiving an education or feeling safe.?
During the conference, students and faculty will have the opportunity to attend a variety of workshops, including sessions lead by a acclaimed children?s book author Fred Lipp of Whitefield and mime and musician Scot Cannon of Belfast. Students in middle school and high school will have sessions on topics such as the history of Malaga Island, prejudice, genocide and the Holocaust, gender roles and stereotypes, Maine?s newest residents from other countries, harassment of sexual minority youth in schools and strategies to eradicate it, and the treatment of Native Americans in the media. The day will close with entertainment provided by acclaimed and gifted drummer Jordan Benissan who is originally from Togo.
Attorney General Mills said, ?These students are Maine?s leaders in ending hate speech, prejudice and violence against minorities. They are helping Maine become the most welcoming, the most tolerant and the fairest state in the nation. I salute their work.?