Brittany Peng wins peace award

PENG PROMOTES PEACE

Senior Brittany Peng receives Fairfax County Student Peace Award for youth community peace-building organization

ALEENA GUL NEWS EDITOR POLINA ZUBAREV FEATURES EDITOR

The room was loud, with over 50 Northern Virginia students in attendance at the Open Peacebuilding and Leadership (OPL) Conference in December 2019. Then-sophomore Brittany Peng was helping Xuan Huynh, a senior friend from Woodson High School, organize the event.

Peng is the current CEO of LeadPeace, an organization that holds different peacebuilding events, particularly for youth minorities and women.

“I think that everyone deserves a chance to be heard because I know what it’s like to not be heard, and I never want to make anyone else feel like that,” Peng said. “I want to make sure that people recognize that they do have a position in society where they can do something.”

LeadPeace initially started as the OPL Conference. Peng and Huynh transformed it into what it is today.

“[The conference] was just really inspiring, so we just took it from there, and we rebranded to LeadPeace,” Peng said. “Because of COVID, we cannot hold another conference, even though we were planning to.”

When Huynh graduated and went to college, she passed down LeadPeace to Peng, who has served many roles both in the OPL Conference and LeadPeace.

“Why I got involved was [partly because of] my friend…but also [to see] how, together as youth, we could unite and make change, especially with all the issues going on right now,” Peng said.

Peng’s drive for initiative and passion to highlight peace in her community made her one of 21 FCPS students to earn the Student Peace Award of Fairfax County this year. Peng is grateful for the recognition and hopes to continue bringing positivity and change within the community.

“Impact can go a long way even in my personal life, besides the community,” Peng said. “The way I think about change…is that there [are] three landscapes. There’s the interpersonal level, there’s the cultural level, and there’s the structural level.”

On these multiple levels, young CEO Peng is using her platform to work on combating issues that face the globe, while focusing on the local community first.

“Moving forward, it’s already 2021, and we still have humanitarian issues that are just so exacerbated by war or whatever it might be,” Peng said. “But even locally, [issues can be determined by] how you treat other people too [and] how you can take into account someone else’s feelings or point of view, even though you might not understand it or resonate with it.”

As part of her mission, Peng organizes Lead Talks, a public speaking initiative, and ArtPEACE, an art expression initiative. These two new forms of peace-building events have found success during the pandemic.

Lead Talks consist of youth guest speakers, usually activists and people from other peace-oriented professions who identify as people of color, women or other minorities. They are invited to come to the organization each month to share their stories.

“I think one of the most memorable ones was with a Syrian-American activist,” Peng said. “She said when 9/11 happened, she was in elementary school, and she was pulled out of her class [by her principal] because she was evidently Muslim. [She also] talked about being harassed from then on and how she got involved in human rights activism.”

The point of Lead Talks is not to center on negative stories or simply talk about a person’s achievements or their work.

“[Lead Talks are for] these leaders to share their stories, like, ‘I’ve been through this, and I’m sure you’ve been through things too, but guess what? I made it and you can make it too,’” Peng said. “It’s about empowerment.”

For those who are more creative, ArtPEACE is a monthly art challenge event that encourages people to create pieces of art about a specific topic.

“[After] people submit their art, those are used as catalysts of discussion during [subsequent] community dialogues,” Peng said. “For example, back in May, we held a systemic racism versus institutional racism dialogue…just so we can foster those discussions because those discussions are really important.”

Through LeadPeace, primarily the Lead Talks and ArtPEACE events that she holds, Peng and her team hope to engage local youth minorities in important issues and make sure their voices are heard, which can impact their community in a positive way.

“Once the participants come in and listen to their speaker, our main goal is for them to leave the talk feeling empowered,” said Kheira Bekkadja, a senior at Thomas Edison High School who is the Lead Talks director. “[We focus on] letting everyone know that they have the power to make their own change, [and] they have the power to do whatever they want. We want them to achieve their dreams.”

Using social media as a platform, the LeadPeace team has focused heavily on mental health lately but hopes to elevate awareness and provide support to teens regarding a variety of subjects.

“[We] love to talk about mental health, and it’s a very important topic, [but we want] to cover as many topics as we can and make our audience feel welcome in every single platform, whether it’s [promoting] mental health, spreading awareness or feeling represented,” said Shanti Ashok, a sophomore at Oakton High School who is the LeadPeace content team director.

I THINK THAT EVERYONE DESERVES A CHANCE TO BE HEARD BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO NOT BE HEARD, AND I NEVER WANT TO MAKE ANYONE ELSE FEEL LIKE THAT.”

- BRITTANY PENG SENIOR

Since LeadPeace has taken off, its positive influence has reached many students, including those who lead the organization.

“Having influence over younger girls and showing them what they can do is amazing,” Ashok said. “I think LeadPeace has really allowed me to grow mentally with everyone around me and see that we all have different stories.”

Similarly, the organization has seen immense success in growing connections between its audience and those it hopes to impact. Members of LeadPeace and its leadership have grown connections to each other as well.

“I just like the safe space and the community that it has built,” Bekkadja said. “Having that team being able to be so flexible and willing to work with one another, and so creative as well, [makes it feel like a family].”

The primary reason for the organization and the work its members do, however, is to promote peace throughout the community.

“I would say peace and security are ways of dealing with conflict…that take into account the interests of all parties while ensuring that humanity is the bottom line,” Peng said.

Peng’s team is proud of her work and the recognition she’s received from earning the Peace Award.

“It brings me joy seeing female leaders, especially my friends, get recognized for such an honorable award,” Ashok said. “It really means a lot just knowing that one small idea from one person can grow to empower so many people.”

Peng hopes that being named a Peace Award recipient, as well as achieving other accomplishments with LeadPeace, will allow her to continue the organization and impact more youth.

“I hope to expand LeadPeace globally. Right now, it’s very centered in Northern Virginia, which is such a great start, but hopefully [we will be able to expand] maybe even nationally or internationally,” Peng said. “[For] some of our events, we have gotten international participants, but I would like to expand maybe in the form of an ambassadorship program, which is in the works.”

Peng’s longtime goal has been to study political science, a dream she plans to make a reality when she attends Georgetown University in the fall.

“I do hope to pursue political science in college and ultimately go to law school. Law school has been my dream since I was a kid,” Peng said. “Law is interesting in the way it has worked historically, and that’s how I want to make an impact.”

LeadPeace has shown Peng how relationships can affect people, and she wants to keep making connections and building relationships as she gets older.

“Relationships go such a long way,” Peng said. “Just acknowledging someone else’s human-hood is superb.”

As a leader for minorities, women and the younger generation of Americans, Peng has the ability to help many young adults. She hopes the organization leaves them with a lasting mark by teaching important skills to make lifelong connections.

“Ultimately, our mission at LeadPeace is to cultivate youth leaders and peace builders, and that all has to do with skills and mindset. Leading by example is such an important thing,” Peng said. “But perfection shouldn’t be a goal. The goal should be the authenticity.”

PEACE, POSTERS AND ACTIVISM — Xuan Huynh, a freshman at Elon University, displays a poster she created for an ArtPEACE event. Senior Brittany Peng’s LeadPeace organization holds the monthly art challenge to help spark community dialogues.