Visible Youth

Please spread this letter.  I’ve typed it out here for easy reading but I will also attach it in it’s handwritten form.  It is not edited.

Dear Mr. President,

I could tell you how much i admire you for your courage to rise above racism and the anger that has built up in African Americans for the last 400 yrs.  Or, i could tell you how bad i want to meet the man who changed my life and my dreams.  But before i tell you why i am sending you, or attempting to send you a letter, i should tell you a little bit about myself. i am an african american freshman, I am 14 years old, and i am switching schools between High tech high chula vista, to crawford multimedia and visual arts.  Currently i gave up my weekend to attend this standing strong together program.  my mother is in the military, since she’s 6-7 mons pregnant money is very hard for us.  I live in San Diego, Ca, and with the strain on money i cant really go to the movies, or shop for shoes with your picture on it.  I cant always get the newest school clothes. or the best shoes.  So i sit at home, teaching myself how to play the keyboard and play guitar.  I’m a writer, i like to create my own songs, write poetry and short stories.  I like to read, and my dream is to be somebody.  I am honored to live in your nation.  I am even more honored to have you as our president.  I appreciate what your going to do for this country, and the lives of a million and more other people.  i wanted to thank you for giving me a chance to become someone and go after my dreams.  you and Helice “Sparky” bridges, have given me a chance to become someone.  The reason why i am writing to you is to let you know i thank you personally i believe in you and i believe that you can change this world.  I wanted to tell you that i want to be someone and change the world for homosexuals, and every race, and religion.  Because of you i now know “yes i can! yes we can!”, because of you. And i do want to meet you.  But letting you know that i appreciate and thank you i want to honor you with a blue ribbon that says who i am makes a difference.  i want to honor you for this whole letter of reasoning; also gave it a ‘bing’ 3 times.

Sincerely,

Kymerra T. High-Smoot. kitkat33@yahoo.com

Kymerra is sending this to President Obama.  Please support her dreams by sending this out.  Her level of appreication is certainly inspiring.

Youth Taking Social Action to Help Create a Better World

Ahhh.  much simpler.

Now onto compiling a list of existing stories.

A report by Prudential, “Ten Year Analysis of Youth Volunteerism” , is very educational in terms of finding out what types of community service efforts youth tend to be engaged in.  In it we find that top on the list of accessable service opportunities is helping the sick, disabled and/or disatvantaged.  It does not surprise me that this is true.  What caught my eye was the 4th and 5th highest ranked, “Enhancing School and Community Resources” and “Teaching, training and tutoring other young people.”  In my own naivete I did not realize that youth realize how important it is to nurture and grown their community.  This leads me to other lines of questioning, “What do the terms ‘volunteer service’, ‘charitible action’ and ‘actions to make the world a better place’, etc mean to youth cross-culturally?”  How do youth worldwide define, ‘conscientiousness’, ‘community service’, ‘activism’, etc?  Here is where I find a great pathway for eliciting stories from kids worldwide.  Would developing a comprehensive description of the world through asking a cross section of children worldwide about their ideas of what problems need to be solved, how to help one other out, and what conscious (conscientious) living mean be an auspicious endeavor?  Could this be found simply by listening to their stories about what their daily, monthly and yearly actions are currently?  That is a documentary effort I would certainly dedicate a year of my life to happily.

That’s my thought for the day.  Keep an eye out for “The Day of Action”…  Get involved.

The driving force behind this blog is to compile information.  That means visiting websites, checking out the links on those websites, following them to others and so on, spidering my way through the youth volunteer and youth media organizations worldwide.  When I first began I had no idea how much is going on in the realm of youth media.  That was my focus tonight.  Most of what I found tonight were organizations whose focus is mainly on giving voice to underprivileged or inner-city youth.  The prevelent purpose for them is not only skill building but also empowerment through storytelling, for the individuals as well as their communities. Often the idea of art for social change is also incorporated into the mission.  The youth participants  stories never fail to be enlightening and educational.

To spin it back around however, I still have to ask, do we validate the voices of all youth?  Are we listening to all of them or do we just think we are?

When I first found the “YouthLab” project I thought, “Wow, I want to be involved”.  Since I first found the project it has expanded and has evolved a wonderful online journal called “Youth Media Reporter” .

Though Visible Youth has a more defined focus, it’s growth would very closely resemble that of Youth Lab.

Though I have not been able to reach Mindy Farber yet I do hope to at some point in the future as her work is as close to what I hope to do as is possible.  Please visit the “Youth Media Reporter” and check out the article titled “Listening Across Borders” as well as peruse the articles you will find there.  It is some pretty amazing work.

I have several months worth of reseach compiled and it is difficult to know where to start.

At the heart of the Visible Youth concept is the belief in the power of story, so that is where I have decided to begin. I am going to start this off  by talking about a program I discovered called “College Summit”.

What turned me onto the organization was a essay compilation they had published called “In Their Words”.

What caught my eye was the following quote, “The idea is that every piece of student writing should be approached with the same respect as a published writer. In other words, we should assume that there is as much intense meaning to be found in an 11th’s grader’s composition as in a TS Eliot poem.” (pg5)  By using ‘free writing’ techniques to free the students from the bonds of worrying about grammar they are able to unleash extremely powerful stories.  The result? In their words, “Students learn to put their heartbeats on paper. They not only discover their voices; they discover that their stories have the power to shatter our notions of where talent lives.” (website)  And kids that never thought they would go to college, did.

This is proof of the Visible Youth notion that storytelling helps us relate to our experiences in a very compelling fashion.  By telling stories about their efforts,  young people explore their feelings about their experience as well as their cause.  Their audience gets to learn about not only them as people but also their causes.  And to quote the above keywords, therein lies heartbeat, discovery and power.

The tragedy of the twin towers was one that unified people of all nations in a moment of solidarity that very few who experienced it will ever forget.  We launch this campaign on this date in honor of that moment in history.

Our children, our desire to make this world a better place and the action of storytelling are all as powerful as tragedy.  We want to explore that power in battling tragedy of all kinds.

The mission of the first phase of this campaign is to initiate a dialogue regarding stories of and about youth contributing their time to make the world a better place.

A daily log of research regarding the power of storytelling as well as volunteerism both for individuals and communities will be published here.

Help us by contributing your thoughts, your stories, and also by spreading the word for others to visit and do the same.