On Saturday May 13th, hundreds of high schoolers gathered at Trevor Day School on the Upper East Side for the 18th annual Multicultural Leadership Conference. There were around twenty Berkeley Carroll students taking part in the day, with Avery ‘17, Nysa ‘18, Handlie ‘18, Mosab ‘19 and Lizzie ‘18 as student facilitators. The day began with registration followed by muffins and juice in the gym. The first part of the day was split into workshops, where each student chose two to go to. There was an incredible variety of workshops: from discussing body image to masculinity, to learning new moves in the dancehall, and  to talks about mental health and media portrayal. Each workshop provided students with a deeper understanding of the topic and the important conversations continued throughout the day. To round up the discussion part of the day, we were broken up into affinity groups based on which borough we live in. Each borough spent an hour talking about hometown pride, gentrification, and even the parts of our boroughs we don’t like as much. The affinity group discussions were followed by a talent show, where students performed their own poetry, student – choreographed dances, soul songs accompanied with a student band, and even rapping. The talent was amazing and everyone enjoyed watching. We then had a delicious meal of chicken, beef, rice and beans, cornbread and plantains as we made new friends with students we had met there. Finally, the day ended with a dance in the gym. Everybody had such a valuable and fun day, I encourage all of you to go to the monthly DAIS meetings and the annual conference!