Some people say youth today need more grit or gumption. Some do. But the truth for those of us like me who've survived being traumatized by violence, poverty, or the doors of opportunity not just flying open when we walk by--well we have true grit to spare.
We have been resilient and are resourceful. We speak up. (Even after we've been told we're too fierce.) And we do like ourselves. Research shows that African American and Latina youth report higher self-esteem than some other populations.
Never was this more evident than at the graduation of The Young Women's Leadership School (TYWLS) of Queens. Today, I had the magical experience of being the commencement speaker for the class of 2014, which is part of the Young Women's Leadership Network of public all-girls schools. This year, nearly 100 percent of TYWLS graduates were accepted to college, and alumnae achieve four-year college degrees at more than triple the rate of their peers.
The graduation also marked a milestone in The Respect Institute, YWLN and our other partners' Clinton Global Initiative commitment to providing 10,000 vulnerable young women ages 11 to 18 in more than ten states through 2015 thetools and coaching (Respect 360) needed to build self-respect in order to improve academic and life outcomes. At CGI America earlier this week, we celebrated that we've enrolled those 10,000 girls in Respect 360. TYWLS Queens students were some of the first to complete the experience in their advisory program. (And I was even able to sneak the girls a message from Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton! Sheadvocated for YWLN early on.)
Yet, I'm still struck at the documented challenges vulnerable girls around the nation face when it comes to the equal opportunity to fully thrive. I wish they all could join the pipeline to college YWLN provides. For this reason, at the graduation today I invited my younger sisters to nourish their self-respect--their most pivotal asset--so they will continue to be the restorative leaders this world needs now.
Here's the commencement speech I was honored to deliver:
We all have our beginnings. My first memory in life is of my mom holding me up as a human shield to try to get my dad to stop beating her to death. I was 2 years old. My parents had hard beginnings too. My father, Artimeo, went to prison at the age he should've been going to college. My mother, Toni, was a teen mom who dropped out of high school.
My parents were a multi-racial couple that experienced a lot of collective adversity. Racism, child abuse, addiction, unemployment, poverty and violence. Perhaps worst of all, they'd often been treated like, and felt like, they just did not matter.
My family and I had work to do. I'm grateful my parents made progress: upward mobility for my mom and sobriety for my dad.
However, two months prior to my high school graduation, I was either going to be the sixth person in my immediate family to not graduate from high school, or the first to cross the stage and pick up my diploma. I had made a career of skipping school and it had caught up with me. If I cut school one more time, I would not be allowed to graduate. Even my friends and family didn't know.
It was time to make a choice despite my circumstances--and if I didn't want my mother to kill me! But how does a young woman who has walked through numerous adverse childhood experiences, trauma and so much shame turn her pain into power?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-macavinta/vulnerable-young-women-al_b_5538917.html
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