Latino youth leadership at UVU

If you noticed a lot of high school students at UVU on March 26, it was due to the Latino Youth Leadership Conference that took place in the Ballroom of the Sorensen Student Center.

The Latinos in Action Program together with UVU and Utah Community Credit Union put together a conference for all of these students ranging from middle school to high school who are involved in the Latino Youth Program. Those who attended listened to current leaders speak about how to mentor other students and encourage each other for a better future.

The main focus of this day-long conference is to connect every student with educators, community leaders and business owners to listen to what they have learned, understand how they got where they are and to encourage the students to keep working hard in their studies.

“Everyone needs to have a good and responsible role model in life,” said Judge Andrew Valdez of the 3rd District Juvenile Court, who was one of the keynote speakers together with Utah State Senator Luz Robles.

Besides lectures, they had a lot of food and entertainment from the different schools. There were 30 schools represented at the conference; currently, 18 of the 30 are Latinos in Action schools and the others are planning on implementing the program in the future.

Camila Ramos, a student from Payson Jr. High who attended the conference, mentioned that they are also supposed to go and be mentors back at their schools, teaching what they learned and encouraging those students who are less active in their studies or attending school.“I am so excited to go back to school and put in practice what I have learned,” said Camila Ramos from Payson Jr. High. ”The speakers were amazing and just to think that they put this together just for us, make us feel so important and valued!”