Symbiosis 2024: Mosaics- A Celebration of Diversity

By Anya Patri

On February 24th, join the youth led and organized event in Fremont to learn more about diversity in our community, teen dating violence, and personal empowerment. 

Symbiosis is a free annual youth summit hosted by the domestic violence prevention group, SAVE (Safe Alternatives to Violent Environments). Under the umbrella of this organization is Team Stronger Than You Think, or Team STYT, a high school volunteering group focused on teen dating violence prevention. As a member of this team, it is an incredibly fun experience and a great way to obtain more volunteer hours. Our advocacy work ranges from educational presentations to individual projects, like documentaries or murals, that are ledlead by individual team members. 

Symbiosis is by far our biggest event, though, drawing in 100+ students in previous years to attend workshops, keynote speeches, and fun arts and crafts activities that inspire people to set healthyhealthier boundaries and gain awareness of domestic violence and dating violence in their communities. In the past, these workshops have ranged from hands-on self defense activities to presentations on healthy boundary setting with your parents. 

This year, on the 6th annual event, our theme is mosaics. Mosaics focuses on the intersectionality between our cultural backgrounds and relationships. It emphasizes how upbringing, culture, community, and environment impact an individual’simpact individual’s romantic, or platonic, interactions with people in the future. 

The event contains many different activities and workshops, from an activity focused on building bridges with poetry, to a masculinity workshop that deconstructs many harmful stereotypes that effect men. There are a multitude of advocacy groups who help host and table at Symbiosis, such as NAARIKA, a south asian domestic violence prevention organization and many others. 

If that isn’t incentive enough to register, there is free food, stickers, prizes, and t-shirts. We also have a raffle running, including prizes such as tickets to six-flags and gift cards for banter bookstore. It is also a great opportunity to connect with local volunteer organizations as well as potentially join the team yourself. 

For further information, check out the Symbiosis website, and to register, fill out the google form below. We hope to see you there! 

https://ysp.save-dv.org/symbiosis/ – Symbiosis website (the registration link is available here)