Youths Launch Own Programs for Empowerment

by Jason Tomassini, Amber Parcher, Jeremy Arias and Robert Dongu | Staff Writer
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009
Gazette.net

On Nov. 1, a 14-year-old was gunned down on a Ride On bus in Silver Spring. Within hours, friends and classmates texting on cell phones and posting online messages emerged as a diverse army of leaders for their community of young people.

They organized a student-led vigil attended by about 200 teens who shared their grief and fears following the death of Tai Lam, a freshman at Montgomery Blair High School. They also took the first steps towards self-empowerment, strides that a few months later seem to be taking hold where similar adult- and government-led efforts have often floundered.

A group named Mixed Unity was established in mid-November. Its members, students from Blair, Northwood and Wheaton high schools along with participants from Montgomery College and several nonprofits geared toward teens, began meeting weekly with an ultimate goal of launching a student-driven anti-violence campaign that would culminate in a spring concert. They've been working to find money and resources for the concert through marketing and multimedia presentations they produce on their own.

The Latin American Student Organization at Northwood High School was also created by students in November, in part to negate the backlash against Hispanics following Lam's death, which allegedly came at the hands of illegal immigrants from Latin America. The group's first objective was to plan Northwood's first Hispanic Heritage Festival, which was held Nov. 25 and featured cultural dancers, food from local restaurants and appearances by Hispanic officials.

Support in peer diversity
The teens involved in the groups said their independence is important, but sometimes leads to doubts as to whether the youth-led initiatives can be successful.

Group outsiders often "don't think anything is going to happen" when it comes to youth-led efforts, said Howa Toure, a Blair graduate and a Montgomery College sophomore who volunteers as a youth mentor.

The AmeriCorps program at Montgomery College recognizes that teens often find it easier to share their opinions with young adults and pairs college students with students at Blair in support of programs that target the homeless. The group coordinated a fundraising walk in November and most recently a program to make quilts for the homeless. Most of the Blair participants are students in the English for Speakers of Other Language program, making them ideal candidates to benefit from a strong peer support network, the students said.

A diverse peer network is also an important aspect of afterschool activities organized by Mixed Unity where students from different backgrounds voluntarily come together, said Logan Talbott, a Blair senior who participates in and helps organize the activities.

Youth from vastly different backgrounds spend afterschool time "just hanging out" at Wheaton Community Center, said Brandon Bianco, a 17-year-old who until recently was part of the violent Salvadoran gang MS-13.

Bianco participates in a county-run graffiti class with other former gang members and a music class with hopes of landing a record deal.

"On the street, we wouldn't be friends," he said. "Blacks, Spanish, white—all of us can blend together and we all have fun."

Support in commonality
Still others are working to unite teens of similar backgrounds. The Latin American Student Organization at Northwood was supported in its formation by the Gaithersburg-based nonprofit Identity Inc., which offers afterschool programs and counseling for Latino youth and families.

The four student officers of LASO, who all have immigrated to the U.S. in the past four years, say the group helps them adjust to life in a new country. Witnessing the hardships their parents have endured in a new country motivated them to seek student-driven programs where they were given responsibility, they said.

"We come here and we learn how to appreciate things more," said senior Carmen Centano, whose father still lives in El Salvador and whose mother, after arriving in the U.S. from El Salvador two years ago, had to work 15 hours a day at two cleaning jobs to support the family.

Latin American teens who fall into lives of crime or poor grades do so because they don't have the motivation it takes to succeed in a new country, Centano said.

Marquan Mott, a freshman at Northwood, said county programs at the Wheaton Community Center provide the motivation that time in the classroom or a tough neighborhood might not. Mott said his primary reason for spending time at the center is to stay out of trouble.

"If I was out in the streets, I'd be doing something bad," he said in December while joking with his friends before his leadership program for at-risk young men began. Mott said he spends time in the center instead of school-based programs because "the people here are more fun."

LASO participants said teachers often don't assist them in assimilating to an American classroom. They also said their youth-led program and Identity provide a more comfortable environment than school.

"In Identity, there's not an adult that's going to come and do everything for him or for her and give a bunch of stuff and say, ‘You are going to do all of this,'" said Jaime Reyes, a Northwood junior who emigrated from El Salvador two years ago. "They say, ‘If you do this, think what's going to happen.'"

A place for adults
In the aftermath of Tai Lam's death, concerned parents and other adults gathered to discuss youth programs offered by the county and nonprofits. They asked whether the programs are effective in protecting teens from violence and if more should be done.

Where that meeting and others like them fall short is they rarely solicit opinions from or involve youths, said teenagers and adults who run youth-focused programs.

"Usually, it's executive directors like me that come up with a plan that works for organizations, but the last group the plan worked for is the kids," said Silver Spring resident Richard Jaeggi, the founder of youth media group Gandhi Brigade, which is providing resources to Mixed Unity.

"Many afterschool program providers go with the assumption that they know what young people want," said Rebkha Atnafou, executive director of the Baltimore-based After School Institute. "Then they are scratching their heads wondering why no one is coming."

Formation of the group was originally thwarted by Northwood administration because the students lacked a faculty sponsor. Once a sponsor was secured, the students acted independently.
"In the face of all that's going on here in the area in past few weeks, it's something totally student-run and positive that is needed," said Jason Kling, a youth counselor for Identity, in November.

Atnafou said the struggle student organizers faced in founding LASO is an example of how youth programs initiated by students can get bogged down by adult intervention, a growing problem in schools.

"The issue with schools is they want a highly structured environment," said Atnafou, whose organization recently opened an office in Rockville and provides training workshops to youth workers. "School systems are known for not letting people get a lot of power over what goes on in schools."

Clemonce DuVall, chairwoman of the Takoma Park Community Action Group, said adult-run youth programs are at a disadvantage because teens usually want to "hang out" in an unstructured environment after school.

"Right now, the most that we can do for our kids is to give them that leadership background so that they can get together and plan their own events," she said. "But you're still going to have that adult supervision, and that's where for me it gets sticky. … I honestly don't know how you would [balance] that."

As a former high school dropout who turned his life around, Silver Spring resident Robert Woodson knows exactly what to tell the at-risk youth he encounters as founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Center For Neighborhood Enterprise. But he doesn't say it. Instead, he opts to create an environment where they can figure it out themselves.

"Neither coercion nor bribes in the forms of social programs work to transform kids," said the 71-year-old Woodson, whose organization has been credited with reviving crime-ridden communities across the country. "What really works is when you invest in leadership figures indigenous to their own communities."

nSports Academies funding (for fiscal 2008, as part of Youth, Gang and Violence Prevention Initiative)
-Paint Branch: $328,490
-Springbrook: $328,490
-Wheaton: $257,890
-Upcounty: $105,970
-Criminal background checks for coaches: $100,000 (fiscal 2008)
-Police Activities League (PAL) funding: $140,000 annually (from Officer Melanie Brenner)
-Gang reduction initiatives: more than $2 million (approved by County Council in May 2008). Money goes to initiatives including the Youth Opportunity Center in Langley Park and the Wellness Center at Northwood High School; Wellness Center programs include a Latino Leadership Program and a Multicultural Youth Leadership Program
-Office of Special Education and Student Services: $642,707 (from school board fiscal 2008). Office includes alternative programs and psychological services
-Summer school funding (from school board fiscal 2008): $2,145,221
-ESOL/bilingual programs: $42,135, 417 (fiscal 2010 MCPS recommended budget)
-total is down about $2 million from last year
-10 ESOL teachers to lose jobs under plan
-17,380 county ESOL students at all grade levels; 12,090 in elementary school
-Safe and Drug Free Schools (fiscal 2010 MCPS recommended budget): $475,361