Youth Leader Advocacy Statements
When they participate in convenings, youth advocates craft their stories and statements that express their concerns. This page features select statements.
We want help but don’t know how to get it
Because we don’t have enough faith in ourselves we don’t need a system we need help. Making goals, well we don’t need some talk about what we need to do because we don’t know what we need…I think if you approach young women with a conversation and make it so its positive it would help. Women are very strong and emotional at the same time so therefore they need more support and not a locked door, that’s what makes things worse. We want help but don’t know how to get it. Have you all ever thought–
- She needs love, she’s looking for love,
- She doesn’t have a father so she’s looking for a man figure to be in her life,
- She fights because that’s all she’s seen growing up, and
- She sells her body cause she’s trying to and wants to feel good about herself.
You see that we have problems so why don’t you do something to help not blame?
I see that basically there’s no return once you lose faith, which you do. What can we do when we are being mistreated and we’re children? If you ever really think about it you’d know that some girls just don’t know what’s happening, maybe we are just too young. I personally fell into a lot of things like new friends, new games–I no longer care about that, I’m tired of trying. I keep a smile on my face at all times. I had to get through some really hard things in my life, really hard. There is a brick wall in front of you and you either stand there and wait or walk around it and I’m trying to get around it but I need help. I honestly think sometimes what’s the use of trying cause who knows if I can handle more setbacks once I get into high school. I don’t want to look for something or be something that’s not me–but who am I?
I don’t think the system knows what they are doing they just think we have problems but do they care where those problems came from? I think everything is going to work out but once the system takes you in and sees that you are in a bad state of mind then they should try to help you and that’s not what happens. I’m glad to be here in Washington, DC but I just wanna ask all of you, what are you going to do about all this?– Youth Advocate, age 14, Southern California, shared this statement which was addressed to Judge Karen Radius, Hawaii Girls Coiurt, and read to meeting participants at the September 23, 2011 Marginalized Girls: Creating Pathways to Opportunity convened by Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy, The National Crittenton Foundation and Rebecca Project forHuman Rights