By Mya Yazzie

The Native Youth Summit is a great experience that I’ll always remember.

I was nervous the first time I went to the summit because I hardly knew anybody. The second day I went there it was pretty fun because we did ice breakers and we got to know each other more better.

They gave us opportunities to try new things like rock climbing, pole climbing or staying on the ground. It was pretty challenging and that made me think about life and the challenges through it. I made some pretty good friends and when we did things that were very challenging like a marble going through a pole without the pole being connected. That really came to my mind because its powerful just knowing that we had to communicate to get the marble through the pipes. Some of us didn’t know how but the good thing was we had friends or now we could say; we’re family, so our family would talk to each other to get the through our problem and just having team work and knowing we have each other’s back was a great feeling.

While we were there we learned about our own personal space. We were training to organize ourselves and to get more active. It taught us to have give support in our communities by learning about one another and how different we are from each other. We learned about healthy relationships, paths to a healthy relationships, and if we were to have sex we have to get consent from the other person.

We learned so many things, and if anything, I will always pass down my knowledge that I learn at the summit to another person.

– Mya Yazzie, 16, Navajo