We encourage everyone to use their hearts and minds to create their very own Regeneration Festival. The sky is the limit. There is nothing we cannot do. You can make a quiet prayer on your own, or organize a four-day citywide festival, or a small quiet event with your people or anything in between. Do what is convenient for you and next year we can expand even more. A strong force is behind these events and so we’ve found it is best to go with the flow and follow your intuition. We have also found that things happen nicely when we act from a place of compassion and hope, rather than a place of fear and anger. If you need some help getting started we have prepared some loose guidelines and suggestions below:

One of the main objectives of the festival is to show young people that they are:

Supported

Honored

Heard

Admired

Cherished

Beautiful

How will we help each other understand this reality?

What is your “target population”? Infants, children, adolescents, teens, people in their twenties, or the child within us all?

No community is alike and no individual is the same. Curtail your events to match your given environment. Speak to us in our language. What does love mean to the young people of your community? Does it mean presence, or presents? What is it that heals them? Is it expression through words or through visual art? Is it prayers in their name? Is it education reform? What is a culturally appropriate message of love and hope? Whatever it is they need, we can find a way to bring it to them.

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Regeneration Festival is not a place to make money. It is a place to support the next generation. The Taos-based festival tries very hard to make it a commercial-free event. There is no buying or selling of anything lest the intention of the event become impure. It is about coming together and pooling our resources for the young to send a message of love and hope. In the end, people will never hold onto material things, they will hold onto the way they felt that day and the intention behind our actions.

One way to ensure community-wide participation, is to run the event solely off donations of materials, labor, and services, rather than monetary donations. This way each individual has the opportunity to share what resources they have access to and organizers are less dependent on funding. It isn’t expensive to tell someone that you love them. Last year we had everything donated. Copies, banners, food, professional sound equipment, art supplies, skills and services were all laid at our feet free of charge because people know this must be done. We ran an incredible event with a budget of $0.00. This gives the elder generations a chance to give to the young.

Publicity: Contact local newspapers, radio stations to publicize. Facebook events are extremely helpful in our information age. Sending personal letters or emails to your contacts is extremely effective.

Garnering Support: Use your story to motivate the public. Why are you inspired to do what you are doing? When young people speak the world stops to listen! You can tell the people what you are doing and why through word of mouth, youtube, public art, or whatever else works in your community.

Whether your regeneration is a the personal, familial, community, city, or national level, it will be beautiful and exactly what it needs to be.

“Action. Even though everyone knows what we should do, nobody does it.”

“Spend time with your family.”

“Social media has made us too self-conscious.”

“Reaffirm that we have a purpose. That we aren’t lost or useless.”

“I want a lounge where young people can exchange ideas and values.”

“A big problem is looking towards the future all the time. It can be daunting with all the major problems in the world combined with social pressures in schools. It makes me so stressed. We aren’t given enough assurance of hope and beauty in life.”

“There is so much stress as a teenager. We get so caught up in our problems and ourselves. I wish I was more exposed to different groups of people. When you see others you feel less alone in your struggle.”

“I had a therapist and it was good. I need to be heard. If we could have therapists at the schools that would be amazing.”

“Society for us is stressful because if you don’t get high SAT scores then we feel worthless. My friend killed herself because she wasn’t a good student. Everybody has a worth and it might not have to do with school.”

“Show us the beauty that is all around us. Show us the treasures in our communities. Take us on tours to beautiful places. Bring color, culture and beauty to us.”

“I would like more interactive events so we don’t have to drink and smoke. Places where we could connect.”

“We need retreats for alcohol and drug addicts.”

“When young people have just one personal mentor, research shows, they are more likely to bounce back from traumatic events like their parents divorcing, or drug addiction.”