From left to right: Katrina and Eric (Aiken), Kara and Lily (Philadelphia), Zoe and Kymani (Louisville)

Middlebury's Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation is powering a growing partnership between BLTN and the James Martin Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey. Three BLTN-connected groups attended the Critical Issues Forum, "Advancing Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation Through Youth Education," April 5-6 to present their year-long exploration of an issue related to the goal of "a world free of nuclear weapons." The BLTN teams were among 14 presenting schools, including five from Japan. Aiken, SC students, Eric Cribb and Katrina Williams, were supported by mentor, Kayla Hostetler. Philadelphia students, Lily Arin Dorfman and Kara Wang, mentored by Monica Rowley, represented Phildelphia. And Kymani Moore and Zoe Lambdin, Louisville students, were mentored and accompanied by Nora Bartlett (MA '11). 

We're thrilled to welcome 33 BLTN fellows (and counting) for 2024-25. Currently, we have seven fellows slated to be in Monterey, eight in Oxford, 17 in Vermont, and one who will be working online. 

Vermont fellows will meet in person each Thursday night 7:00-8:15 pm, from June 27-July 25. California fellows will join via Zoom each of the Thursdays of the Monterey session. Oxford fellows' meeting dates and times will be set before the session begins. Meetings are required for current fellows and are open to the entire Bread Loaf community. We'll share weekly Zoom links for Vermont meetings via BreadWeb.

The schedule will be slightly modified in Vermont and Monterey for July 11; we'll send details soon.

All fellows will receive information on joining BreadWeb, our Bread Loaf and BLTN digital community, in early May. Contact Beverly Moss with BLTN meeting questions, or Tom McKenna with BreadWeb questions. 

As we mentioned in the last issue, BLSE will host a retreat on the Bread Loaf campus July 11-14 for the BLTN Next Generation Leadership Network (BLTN NextGen), a cohort of more than 30 youth and teacher-mentors from ten different sites across the country, who collaborate year-round on advocacy projects that are themselves centered on powerful forms of storytelling. The centerpiece of the retreat will be a screening of films created by BLTN NextGen youth and allies through the BLTN “What’s the Story?” collaborative (What's the Story: The Young Filmmakers' Social Action Team). Stunning in their presentation and research, these documentaries take on locally and nationally pressing social issues, such as indigenous rights and representation; mental health; food insecurity; and climate-change. Events will be open to the BLSE community. 

We encourage BLTN teachers to watch their emails and BreadWeb posts for June offering of Goswami Action grants. This round will feature larger awards with a range of $2,500-$5,000, intended to support work planned over the summer and to be implemented in the 2024-25 school year. For a summary of the past years' Goswami Action Grant awards, visit the BLTN Journal, along with the February 2024 issue of this newsletter.

Over the past several years, BLTN teachers have designed collaborations to engage students in study of language, dialect, and related equity issues. If you're on BreadWeb, you're invited to join the "Linguistic Justice and Language Study" group to share resources, approaches, and questions of practice with one another.

The group is administered by BLTNers Whitney Morgan and Erin Tabor (MA '23). Feel free to contact Tom McKenna with questions.

Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) once again invites the BLTN community to participate in the final of its yearlong writing workshop series. Join the SFIS student writing center for "Harvesting a Healthy Community: Nourishing the Culture within Our Roots" Monday, April 22 at 4:00-5-30 PM Mountain Time. Use the Zoom link https://sfis.zoom.us/j/83008143365. Contact Susan Miera (MA '97) with questions.

Thank you for reading along and keeping in touch with us this school year. Our April newsletter is the final issue of the academic year. Look for the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the BLTN Journal in late May.  

Please notify us of accomplishments you’d like to share in the monthly newsletter. 

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