Hun students came together on campus and spent the weekend before MLK day enhancing their leadership skills at the MLK Summit after diligently crafting their applications and being accepted into the program.
The Martin Luther King Summit is one of the many leadership and cultural competency enhancement programs at Hun. In the Summit, students gather in a safe space to discuss a series of different identity issues and experiences throughout three days of awareness-centered discussions and activities.
“One of the most valuable lessons I learned after attending the MLK Summit is that respecting other people’s beliefs and opinions is so important,” says Josh Dismukes ‘25, President of the Hun Upper School and MLK Summit student facilitator. “We all grow up in very different households, cultures and environments; as leaders and people in society it is crucial that we recognize that.”
For many students, the MLK Summit is used to elevate pre-existing leadership skills. However, for some students like Samira Jafari ‘25, a new boarding student from Afghanistan, the MLK Summit is one of their first leadership experiences that they have had since coming to a new school, or even a new country entirely.
Samira says, “The MLK Session taught me what a gift it is to be able to share my opinions and how important it is to take a stand for what I believe in.”
The primary goal of the MLK Summit is to inspire change, whether that be on a personal, community, or social level. A constant drive to be better and to make better what is not yet good enough is the mindset that students leave with after completing this weekend-long course.
“I want students to learn that you shouldn’t seek perfection from others or from yourself,” Says Otis Douce, one of the leaders of the Cultural Competency committee and a faculty facilitator of the MLK Summit. “It isn’t a linear path to change; it’s a path where people fall and go the wrong way and get lost before they can advance again.”
The Summit values the importance of young people being able to see parts of themselves in those that they admire. Diversity makes the participants feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable and share their own personal experiences with the group, leading to an overall increased level of understanding between everyone involved.
“I look around the room and I see teachers that look like me. It makes me feel like I can really be myself, and as a leader, you have to be able to be yourself around your peers,” explained Tamara Elayo ‘25, student facilitator and member of the Black Student Union.
The MLK Summit inspires leadership, confidence, and authenticity in students. It encourages them not only to improve themselves as individuals but to improve the world by the impact they choose to leave on it.
Through a weekend of hard work, communication, awareness, and perspective changes, Hun students took the first step towards becoming the best versions of themselves.
