UNITY Youth Highlight
A cultural gathering in Oklahoma City became a place for Mahiya Ramirez to connect people with UNITY. At the Potato Dance World Competition on February 10, 2024, she met former conference participants and representatives of organizations interested in the opportunities UNITY offers Native youth.
The event took place at the First Americans Museum, bringing Ramirez’s regional outreach into a public community setting. Her participation created opportunities for informal conversations with people who already knew UNITY and others who wanted to learn more.
Ramirez, who is Muscogee, served as Southern Plains Representative in UNITY’s 2023–2024 National UNITY Council Executive Committee cohort. The cohort represents Native youth perspectives, connects regional councils and individual members, and strengthens leadership through cooperation and community service.
“This was a cool event to attend, I was able to connect with some individuals who had attended conferences in the past, as well as different organizations and groups, who showed interest in UNITY,” Ramirez wrote.
Her account highlights two sides of outreach. Reconnecting with previous participants helps keep relationships active, while meeting interested organizations opens a conversation about youth development and involvement. Both begin with the kind of personal contact that can happen where community members are already gathering.
The experience followed UNITY’s Midyear Conference in Phoenix earlier that month. In her separate report about Midyear, Ramirez described feeling inspired by Native youth who were passionate about helping their communities and creating positive change.
Her March report added another setting for relationship-building: the Reservation Economic Summit in Las Vegas, where she connected with organizations and youth leaders alongside fellow executive committee members. The museum gathering, Midyear, and RES each placed her in conversation with a different part of that wider network.
Those connections reflect UNITY’s emphasis on social development, cultural identity, and youth leadership. Ramirez’s report shows a representative staying engaged beyond a formal meeting or conference agenda, bringing an interest in youth opportunity into a community event.
The significance of the day was in those exchanges: people familiar with UNITY reconnecting, interested groups asking about its work, and a young leader helping sustain the relationships that make regional outreach possible.
