I heard about "Many Young Voices" through one of my mentors from Young Hispanic Families (YHF) organization. I thought it would be interesting. But I had my doubts like most teenagers do. Will I know any one there? Will I be the only Hispanic girl there? Will there be a lot of kids there? But I didn't let my fear get the best of me, so I went. At first I thought there would be a cafeteria full of kids. But to my surprise only a hand full of kids showed up. Also to my disappointment there was little variety of kids in age, sex, ethnic background. For example there was all girls and one boy.
The first day we talked about what we wanted from the meetings, rules(we all agreed to the rules that we made. It's not like school. The rules were made by us.), and talked about ourselves. I thought it was nice. As days went by we opened up a little more. I liked the meetings we had. They were a way to vent things out. You don't have parents or older sisters there, telling you, "You are wrong." Or judging you in any way, if you know what I mean. There were adults there but they weren't judging us or investigating us. Both of them were just there to listen. They were like friends. You could talk about any thing that bothered you and didn't have that uncomfortable feeling. Then you had other kids there, your age or just about (like with my case). They had the same or total opposite opinions you had. I really like the meetings we had. The sad part was that it was over way too soon. But we are now making a web site and finding a place where we, the kids, can hang out and have the meetings, instead of a school cafeteria.
My experience of Many Young Voices was so good and helpful that I want to form one at my high school. Because there is so much racial tension there, I know that we need one. I might sound like one of those adults that want to help all of the poor and unfortunate kids. But I'm 17 years old. I think a program like this in schools will ease the tension in lot of schools. I'm not saying it will stop all racism, but just help ease and help kids vent out their feelings. I think it will help our if the facilitator is a teen like the rest of them. That is why I went to a facilitator training. So I can make a difference and not be another statistic.
Susana Rodriguez