Experience Paper - Intercultural Communications

Every year, teens from all over the world eagerly wait in anticipation for the summer months. This time of the year is more than just a primetime to bask in the rays of the sun, it’s the only time of the year where youth have true freedom; there’s no school in session, there’s more outdoor activities to take advantage of, and of course this is the time of summer camp. There’s an assortment of summer camps for student and adults alike to participate and facilitate in. Some camps are dedicated exclusively to sport interests, academic interests, and even student achievement and development, while others offer a combination of themes to accommodate a larger crowd of interest and diversity. I’m especially fond of the student conferences that are usually hosted during the summer, which all vary in mission and demographic. This paper will analyze my unique experience as a facilitator of the annual Hugh O'Brian Youth (HOBY) Conference held at the University of Las Vegas. I’ll highlight strategies on how I was able to effectively foster relationships and interact with students of diverse ethnicity, socio-economic statuses, and world views.

Context: History

I facilitated two youth leadership conferences prior to my appointment as lead facilitator of H.O.B.Y. Las Vegas. These conferences where primarily multi-cultural, which easily created a space of comfort for me because I could readily identify with the metaphor references, colloquialisms, current cultural trends, and of course the witticisms. It was easy for me to facilitate a select group of Black and Chicano students, however, facilitating a conference composed primarily of white-suburban students, whose families are well endowed, would prove to be a challenge of epic proportion - I was up for the challenge. I arrived to the campus dormitories a day earlier than the youth to make the necessary preparations to our floor. It’s customary for every HOBY conference to have a theme, that year happened to be Dr. Seuss,...