Cameron Ebel Teens Against Violence (CETAV) was founded by Gary and Laura Ebel following the death of their son.
“Our son Cameron lost his life to teen violence at the young age of 15. The loss was devastating to our family and crippling to our community. When we began looking into the causes of teenage death we learned that the United States has the most violent teen culture of all the industrialized nations. Every day twenty-two teenagers lose their life to teen violence. That is over 8,000 per year. Too many of America’s children have lost their understanding of the value of human life. We knew we had to do something to stop our pain and the pain that so many other families suffer. Our answer was to help young people learn to stop the violence through tolerance and respect. That mission of teaching tolerance and respect for human life is the heart of CETAV.”
The vehicle for CETAV’s mission are its Student Leadership Summits. These were developed in 2002 in conjunction with the Douglas County Student Assistant Office, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the Juvenile Assessment Center. Each Summit consists of a day-long event in which student leaders from the 7-12th grades, and from diverse factions of a school, are gathered. (Research indicates that targeting the school’s leaders effectively disseminates tolerance and respect to the larger school climate.)
These young leaders spend the day in targeted discussions over diversity, tolerance and mutual respect. Topics treat some of the most personal and hardest-hitting areas of teenage life, including: racism, anti-Semitism, bigotry, sexism, scape-goating, stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. The students are encouraged to develop personal action plans for promoting tolerance in their spheres of influence.
This year CETAV hosted more than 420 students in grades 6-12 from fifteen schools. Each student leaves with an individual and group plan to “infect” their school and in turn reach close to 20, 000 youth. In its history, CETAV has connected face to face with 1874 student leaders.
CETAV is ready to take the next step and take Student Leadershp Summits throughout not only Douglas County School and Denver Public Schools but onward to school districts all along the Front Range.
