Afra Smith, founder of The Melanin Project, wants the upcoming Wealth Literacy Conference her organization puts on to not only be a resource, but a place for community and liberation.
This year’s conference will be held at The Lighthouse at TruStage on Madison’s West Side on Saturday, April 26. Additionally, this will be the first year high school students will be able to attend the conference with sessions tailored to them.
It is no coincidence that high schoolers will have a space at the conference to learn. This year’s theme is “Legacy: The Power of Present Choices,” which Smith connected to generational impact.
Smith said she often talks about generational wealth, and incorporating high schoolers into the event this year is a way of teaching future generations what to do to maintain that wealth.
“I can certainly make it. But are you going to be able to grow it, or are you going to squander it?” Smith asked when talking about generational wealth.
Local youth organizations worked with the conference this year to assist in providing the younger participants with sessions. Smith said CLIMB USA will help educate about the stock market, and CEOs of Tomorrow Inc. will speak about entrepreneurship.
Summit Credit Union will also be at the conference talking about personal finance.
“So we’re hitting all those pillars for the youth,” Smith said. “We selected some great youth speakers and guests to come in alongside them to really preview that.”
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Adult participants will have their own schedule and sessions to attend as well. This year’s keynote speaker will be Willie Smith, who is the executive director of Northwest Side Community Development Corporation. Opal Ellyse Tomashevska, an author and spoken word artist who is the director of multicultural business strategy at TruStage, will be the event’s master of ceremonies.
While the event is a conference, Smith said it is not the typical “stale financial conference.” Smith added that people leave the conference with business connections, but they also walk away having had real conversations.
During the conference’s first year, Smith worried about people feeling comfortable enough to have important and vulnerable conversations, but she said it was not an issue. She said people were comfortable and were thankful to have a space to talk about their circumstances.
Smith said she views the conference as a movement to bring everybody together and push people in their own journey.
“So I always say that the stories are great, but you have to also connect it into yourself because that’s what true liberation is,” Smith said.
For Smith, liberation is a major part of her journey. Liberation is personal empowerment and what a person can do to improve their own circumstances and not rely on a system, she said.
The conference is open to everyone of all backgrounds, but part of making the conference a comfortable experience is the choice to center it around the BIPOC experiences because that is not often the case in other spaces, Smith said.
“And so how do you connect into your community if you can’t identify with the journey or the story?” Smith asked. “So I bring in relatable people and relatable stories.”
More information about the Wealth Literacy Conference can be found here. Registration for the conference closes on Friday, April 18, at noon.
