Youth Today
Youth Voices
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1.3KBathroom Bills and Trans Youth
As a queer Jewish teenager, I have the uncommon privilege of having relationships with people between 20 and 50 years older than...
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3.4KI Used to Love America: How a Racist Jail System Changed Me
I spent my 18th birthday incarcerated, and saw many of my peers do the same. Our formative years formed within the confines...
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2.8KMake My President Black Again
It wasn’t until I had gotten locked up at the age of 18 that I began to willingly learn and deeply care...
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1.5KConnection, Support Helps Us Build Our Youth Movement
That is why dismantling young people’s oppression in the era of Trump is one of our fundamental objectives.
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2.8KA Year of VISTA Service: Five Lessons for Nonprofit Practitioners and Other Service Members
Derek Moore and Nicole Smith completed their AmeriCorps VISTA service this week. During their year of service, they supported the launch of...
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3.1KIncarcerated Youth and Their Families: Human Just Like Everyone Else
Watching my brother go to jail opened my eyes to the fact that I want to help and work with youth who...
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1.4KA World Without Obama Is Like a World Without My Mom
It’s the end of an era, and the start of a new one. On Friday, Barack Obama, my first president, is now...
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1.4KLive on Washington: The Evolution of a Teen-Curated Festival, and Why It’s Important
It’s late spring, 2012, and 15 teenagers sit around a rectangular table on the second floor of the Neutral Zone, Ann Arbor’s...
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1.9KPull Up One More Chair For Youth
Young people’s lived experience speak to viable solutions that policymakers might otherwise never come upon. The best first step for anyone looking...
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2.9KRemaking a Life: Inside and Out
I had been accused of a serious crime at the age of 17, and because the courts wanted to charge me as...
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5.8KSailing through Memory
My mind is somewhat of a junkyard, full of twisted metal and lost souls, and I sweat as I run from demons...
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1.6KCasting My First Ballot — Every Vote Matters, Even if it Doesn’t
After having phone-banked and canvassed numerous times without being able to cast a ballot, it felt wonderful to walk into the building...
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3.4KAn Unspoken Voice
With the InsideOUT Writers program, I devote myself to using my voice to help others, but it wasn’t always this way. I...
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2.1KYouth Helping Youth: ServiceWorks VISTAs Reflect on 9/11 and Serving Their Generation
To kick off its third year, ServiceWorks – a youth development program from AmeriCorps, the Citi Foundation and Points of Light –...
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3.1KAutism: An Experience, a Story, a Proposal
My name is Benjamin Adams and I have autism. I was diagnosed with autism when I was 2 years old and have...
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4.1KInside Out Writers: An Introduction
I was 15 and already convicted. Shepherded by probation officers up and down the halls at Central prior to any official sentencing,...
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1.5KA Message to Queer Youth in the Wake of Orlando
For some, the ubiquity and high frequency of mass shootings in the United States is nothing less than shocking. But many teens...
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2.7KLegalized Torture: A Solitary Confinement Experience
"After just 24 hours, I testify that solitary confinement is hell on earth. Solitary confinement is legalized torture," says Anyssa Williams, a...
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2.0KNo Job, No Home, No Green Card: Crashing Into 21
“Do you know you’re an illegal immigrant?” I was 19 when my social worker asked me this question. Shocked and confused, I...
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1.3KPreventive Services Saved My Family
I was pregnant when I aged out of foster care. My boyfriend and I wanted to have the baby, but I worried...
