Quaker Youth Leadership Conference 2026

By Sophia Patton '27 and the QYLC participants

On January 29th, Upper School English Teacher Ayesha Ahmad and Director of College Counseling Chris Miller chaperoned six SSFS students to Providence, Rhode Island to attend the 2026 Quaker Youth Leadership Conference hosted at Moses Brown School. This year’s conference theme was “Creat(iv)e Change,” which was chosen by the Moses Brown student leadership team “as a way of highlighting the connections between art - and human creativity in general - and our never-ending work for a more just, more peaceful world.”

QYLC brings together high school students from across the Friends school community, and over the course of three days all attendees engage in thoughtful moments of reflection, meaningful discussion, and collective experience that furthers intellectual growth and relationship building. In fact, most of the schools traveled to Moses Brown via Amtrak train where different groups had the chance to meet and get to know each other at different stops along the Northeast Corridor. These were affectionately referred to as our “Peace Trains.” From the moment we arrived in Providence and first stepped foot onto the Moses Brown campus, we were met with inviting buildings, thoughtful architecture, and different seating spaces that made the campus feel warm and familiar, or as Junior Sophia P. put it, “kind of like SSFS in that way.” Sophomore Hafsa Husain felt the community was “very welcoming and kind to us,” and created what many people described as a true “safe space to speak freely.”

Each day of the conference included time for Meeting For Worship (MFW), which Sophomore Alex S. described as, "uncensored" and made her feel moved to speak like she had “never done before.” The first night also included time to meet with our Family Groups, which was made up of students from different schools, and an original one-man show written and performed by a member of the Moses Brown faculty that is based on his experience as a volunteer for Camp AmeriKids, a summer camp for children living with chronic illnesses. Sophomore Clara Katzin noted how the Omealas performance was “very moving and thought provoking,” and the rest of the Sandy Spring group felt the same way about the performance.

The next day, we partnered with students from Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey and visited The Simmons Center for Study of Slavery and Justice to see a new exhibit that featured drawings made by children from Israel and Palestine. Alex reflected on the exhibit by saying that it “totally changed my views” and taught her that “compassion should not come with terms and conditions.” Junior Sophia Patton added that the Simmons Center gallery on the Israel and Palestine conflict was “very emotional, educational and touching,” which was reflected among the other Sandy Spring students as well.

On the last day of QYLC, we attended workshops led by Moses Brown student leaders and had our final Meeting for Worship before everyone started heading home. During the weekend after the conference, we all also contributed to the creation of a graffiti wall where we were able to express our feelings about the conference experience and had the chance to put down our final thoughts of our 2 and a half days spent in Providence. QYLC taught us we all have the power to make change in different ways, though junior Scott D. reminds us that “not everyone needs to be a rebel; you can help in the background and still make change.”

We left QYLC feeling energized and inspired by the powerful emotions and our new connections made with everyone there, and we felt very changed by the experience overall. As sophomore Vivien D. shared, the experience created a “really good connection between students, which reminded us how powerful shared space and honest conversations can be.”

See more photos from the trip online.