On Wednesday, Apr. 18, IGSS attended a Peace Summit in the South side of Chicago with their partner schools, the Perspectives Charter Schools, and several other Chicago area high schools. At the summit, they discussed potential ways of bringing peace to the area.

The Perspectives Charter Schools consists of five different schools that run from elementary to high school. Junior Allison Elli noted that Perspectives usually plans this summit themselves, but this year they invited IGSS to help them.

Junior Abbi Baran believes that as a program, “IGSS pushes us to care more about our own learning and forces us to think about ourselves not only as students, but as people.”

This certainly proved to be true at the Peace Summit as participants expanded their awareness of the world around them.

Students have been focusing their efforts into planning this day, as the schools have been planning for it since the fall when IGSS met with Perspectives students to plan for the summit as well as the Peace March that will be taking place in June.

According to senior Andrey Nash, at this previous meeting, students broke off into groups and designed T-shirts, stickers, a logo, while he and his group created an invitation and a flyer.

They also learned more about pressing issues such as gun violence.

“I think partnering with the school served as a catalyst for both discussing race related issues, such as gun violence, segregation, school funding, and developing friendships across geographic and socioeconomic gaps,” said Baran.

Elli noted how being able to develop relationships with people that she might not ordinarily be able to meet has been fascinating.

“It was interesting because although we were all the same ages and in high school, we have had some pretty different life experiences and it was cool to get to know them in that way,” she said.

At the Peace Summit, students had the opportunity to listen to several different speakers.

“They talked about the importance of not contributing to the violence, and doing all you can to promote positive change in Chicago,” stated Nash.

Following the speakers, students separated into smaller workshops before coming back together to watch a documentary made by some of the Perspectives students several years ago. To conclude the day, a panel of students from each school at the summit talked about different solutions to gun violence as well as their perspectives on the issue.

The documentary made by Perspectives students was called “We Are The Peace,” and was centered on the peace march that they plan every year, as well as how they hope to bring peace to the South side.

Elli explained that she had signed up for two workshops, Girls to Women and Pathfinders: Pursuing and Choosing Peace. “Both of them had groups of students from a lot of the schools there so it was fun to interact in smaller groups and come up with ideas on how we can create peace in our lives and on a larger scale,” she said.

Even when students weren’t in guided discussions, they were still learning from those around them. Baran recounted one of her favorite moments of the day, which was eating lunch with a group of Chicago Police officers and being able to discuss a wide range of topics.

“Not all of the conversations were ‘successful,’ and they were not expected to be. This is a good sign that we are concerning ourselves with something meaningful.

If it can’t be resolved in one sitting, it’s likely worth talking about. To be clear, I am referring to police brutality,” said Baran.

For many students, this Peace Summit was an eye-opening experience that allowed them to connect with others from different backgrounds outside of their normal community.

One of those students was Elli, who realized that even though violence doesn’t always impact students.

“It is prevalent in places so close to us, affecting kids just like us. It can be hard to wrap your head around, but I think the peace summit helped us to think of some ways that we can help find a solution [to violence] as teenagers here at New Trier.”