Stop Workshop

STOP (STUDENTS TOGETHER OPPOSING PREJUDICE)

The Annual STOP Workshop takes place each year in January on the Friday before the start of the spring semester at Siena College.

Siena College, Sarazen Student Union
Friday January 14th
Time: 8:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Each year 200 students from 20 Capital Region Middle Schools and High Schools participate in a violence prevention workshop. This is sponsored by the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King Lecture Series and is organized and run by the World of Difference of the ADL.

Students meet in small groups and are involved in activities, workshops, discussions and action planning around issues of prejudice, violence, tolerance and respect. Students attend this conference to actively work in groups with adult leaders to discuss ways to become more involved and to help extinguish intolerance, bullying, gangs and discrimination. Students are led by trained facilitators from area agencies, but there is ample input from the students themselves as they make plans to bring what they learned back their schools.

Over the past few years actors from Shenendehowa HS have provided a captivating dramatization of real life issues that our children face in school. Advisors - counselors or teachers - from the schools also take part in their own workshop where they are guided through the themes of the day with a focus on becoming equipped with the tools to bring the lessons learned back their schools.

It is our hope that each year that as a result of the workshop, Siena sends these students back to their schools as knowledgeable allies for people in need. Some of them will no doubt become student leaders and help bring about the change we all want to see.

The following schools sent groups of students to the STOP workshops:

Workshop Organizing Committee: Lorraine Tiven, Kate Jackett, and Peter Ellard

For information on participating in next year’s workshop, please e-mail Kayla Snow at ksnow@siena.edu.