Prevention. Politics. Poetry. Speaking out.

(Black PR Wire) As a part of its 4th Annual Louder Than A Bomb Florida Poetry Festival presented by Nova Southeastern University and UPS, the Jason Taylor Foundation will present an intergenerational Town Hall meeting to discuss the importance of creating and fostering safe spaces for students both holistically and in the classroom. The event will take place in the Knight Auditorium on Nova Southeastern University’s main campus.

This meaningful dialogue will be between educators, advocates, allies, and leaders, but will go beyond the panelists and audience participants. The conversation will touch on what it means to create safe spaces for our youth, how to support our youth and ourselves while doing so, how we ensure safety in our schools, and how to build resiliency in our communities. Past topics of the Louder Than A Bomb Florida Town Hall have been on Social Justice, Arts in Education, and the Power of Youth Voices.

Louder Than A Bomb Florida (LTABFLA) is a 27-day youth poetry festival that features youth poets from schools throughout Florida and includes poetry bouts, workshops, exhibits, and ultimately the crowning of Florida’s top youth poetry team.

“Our program’s mission is to not only uplift the voices of Florida youth, but to give them tools for community building and civic engagement,” said Sierra DeMulder, Program Director of the Jason Taylor Foundation’s bluapple Poetry Network. “This forum is a powerful opportunity for our students to articulate their own unique experiences and speak on how systems and policies affect them as the future change makers of society.”

The night will also feature a powerful performance from a poet participating in the Louder Than A Bomb Florida festival and a presentation on resiliency.

Event: Town Hall Meeting: Safe Spaces, Safe Schools          Date:  Mon. April 9, 2018         Time:   6:30 - 8:30 PM   Location: Knight Auditorium, Nova Southeastern University

Moderator:

Darryl Forges (NBC 6 Reporter)

Panelists:

Congressman Ted Deutch

Carolynn White, LMFT (Counselor, PACE Center for Girls)

Ashleigh Cromer (Executive Director, Be Strong)

Cherie Benjoseph, LCSW (Founder and COO, KidSafe)

Precious Symonette (Educator and Poetry Club Sponsor at Miami Norland Senior High School)

Ramis Hashmi (Poet and Student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas)

The event is free and open to the public.

About the Jason Taylor Foundation

In July 2004, Miami Dolphins legendary Defensive End and Pro Football Hall of Famer, Jason Taylor, established the Jason Taylor Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) organization. The Foundation’s mission is to support and create programs that facilitate the personal growth and empowerment of South Florida’s children in need by focusing on improved health care, education and quality of life.

Since opening its doors, the Jason Taylor Foundation has impacted tens of thousands of children through innovative programming including The Jason Taylor Reading Room, Cool Gear for the School Year, the Jason Taylor Children’s Learning Center, Jason Taylor Scholars and the Omari Hardwick bluapple Poetry Network, among others. For more information on the Jason Taylor Foundation, please visit www.JasonTaylorFoundation.org or follow on Facebook: www.facebook.com/jasontaylorfoundation or Twitter and Instagram: @jtfoundation99 or @bluapplepoetry #LTABFLA.

About Nova Southeastern University (NSU)

Located in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida, NSU is a dynamic research institution dedicated to providing high-quality educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and first-professional degrees levels. An independent, not-for-droit institution with approximately 25,000 students, NSU has campuses in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Miramar, Orlando, Palm Beach, and Tampa, Florida as well as San Juan, Puerto Rice and online globally. For more than 50 years, NSU has been awarding degrees in a wide range of fields, while fostering groundbreaking research and an impactful commitment to community. Classified as a research university with “high research activity” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, NSU is one of only 37 universities nationwide to also be awarded Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification. For more information, please visit www.nova.edu.

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