Generation Be There: A Night of Community, Connection and Action

What does it mean to truly be there for someone?

That question brought students, advocates and young leaders together in Washington, DC, for Generation Be There: A Night of Community, Connection, and Action. The event was part of the Born This Way Foundation's Generation Be There campaign, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention co-hosted the evening with the Foundation.

Student peer listeners at the center

The Center welcomed undergraduate student leaders from A Place to Talk (APTT), Johns Hopkins' peer-listening group for the undergraduate community. APTT peer listeners are undergraduates trained through the Johns Hopkins Counseling Center in 50 hours of active listening and crisis intervention. Their role is to listen with empathy, without giving advice.

Peer listening reflects a simple idea: sometimes the most helpful thing one person can offer another is their full attention.

An evening of many voices

The night brought together a wide range of young people and organizations:

• Student performances by the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
• Conversations with young leaders from Our Minds Matter and the Ryan Bartel Foundation.
• Mindfulness with [solidcore].
• An interactive workshop on the Be There Certificate.
• Community discussions over pizza.

Throughout the evening, participants shared honest reflections, and real vulnerability, about what it means to be there for each other.

Being there is a skill

A central message of the night was that connection is a skill anyone can learn. The free Be There Certificate course is designed to help people build that skill and be there for one another, kindly and safely. It is available at certificate.bethere.org/GenerationBeThere.

Suicide is preventable, and communities are better able to prevent it when they are equipped to support one another. The goal of Generation Be There is a whole generation prepared to be there for each other, and evenings like this one move that goal forward one conversation at a time.

The Center is grateful to the Born This Way Foundation, APTT, and every organization and young person who took part, and to everyone who shared their reflections with such openness.