HBO -- Reflections Resolutions

CHLA II Looking Back Looking Forward

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee - Charles & Josh

"I would like to thank my mentor for taking me out to meseums which are the places I like. I also want to thank him for hanging out and having fun with me. My mentor lets me know he cares for me because he spends his hour break with me. Through this program I learned to communicate with others. For example, you never know when the person next to you in class, school, or even your neighbor can end up being your friend and share things with each other".

-Josh

Tony's Blog: How a white man goes into the hood

Recently, a corporate executive asked me how a white man goes into the hood. My answer was that most of the time he drives east and then south.

No, seriously he said: How do you learn to speak their language?

I try to meet them at a place that is beyond language. Connect to their hearts.
If I try to talk like them I’m being inauthentic and they pick that up and that becomes what is communicated.

If I try to talk like an adult to a child, they turn off. So, we have to discover a common language together: A language of the heart, or perhaps the soul. The language they are used to from adults is the language of judgment. “This is what is wrong with the way you are living your life. Let me tell you the right way”.

"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing

and rightdoing, there is a field

I'll meet you there."

Rumi

The other thing they get is the eight words: “If you do this, you will get that.” Trust me, these kids know about accountability. They are hammered over the head with it every day. They just don’t see the point. What young people want is to be seen, to be valued. It is more important to the human spirit than the knowledge of reward and punishment. This is especially true during the years that they are trying to form their identity in the world. Youth in the city get messages everyday that they translate to mean, “you have no place in this world…you don’t belong here.”

So, I try to bring them a different language. One that is more imaginative, thoughtful and resourceful. One that is not based on “put downs” which is the most common language of youth today, but one that is based on connection and recognition. That is the spirit of “sawubona” (Zulu for “I see you”).

Finally, I try to see them as bearers of great gifts, not as receptacles for my wisdom. This is perhaps the key to their respect and to my humility which makes us both approachable.

This is my approach to ‘inner city youth’, but come to think of it:

Isn’t this what we should all be doing for each other?

respectfully,

Tony

Friday's Follow Up

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tony's Blog: We have it in our power to begin the world over again
Tony woke up on Monday, MLK Day, with optimism "in the form of an outpouring of support for our dream of an Urban Oasis for teens in the heart of the city" and the gifts of the youth mingling with the elders.

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee-Ki Kim & Maria Perales
Maria thanks Ki for being her mentor. To Maria, Ki is cool and has helped Maria make a lot of changes in her life.

Wednesday's Word on the Street: In Memory of a Girl
One of our kids shared her poem, a beautiful and amazingly insightful look at her feelings. Please take a read and feel the raw honesty.

It's Friday and raining. Out of our window at YMC I see an amazing rainbow arcing over Los Angeles.
Stay dry people.
La Judy

Wednesday's Word on the Street: In Memory of a Girl

YMC doesn't need to speak on behalf of children... Our kids can speak for themselves! At a recent Odyssey mentoring session facilitated by our partners Street Poets, our mentors and mentees brought their souls into the room.

One of our mentees, a brilliant and guarded 14-year-old, was brave enough to read the poem below to a room full of 80 people... and now she's allowed us to share her poem with you:

In memory of a girl
who used to laugh and smile for no reason at all
A girl who used to stick her chest out with her head help up high, nice and tall.
I find myself wondering, who I am to be brilliant, beautiful, and talented?
The voices in my head scream at me to hide the person that lies within
because that person no one understands,
the pain, the hurt, now one gives a damn.
The blood I bleed, the tears I shed, my highs and lows are gone.
He kicked, stabbed and broke my heart,
to the point where me and my self esteem fell apart.
I’m not beautiful,
I wish these people would stop lying because I’m internally dying,
to be this person I’m not,
happy, beautiful and talented.
I wish the pain would stop.
I wish people would quit saying I’m pretty or beautiful
because I know that I’m not.
I don’t want to be happy and I don’t want to smile,
I want to be left alone with my tears and sorrows,
and even some days I wished
that I wouldn’t see tomorrow.


... And her mentor was right there with her when she read her poem. The greeting we use, "Sawubona," means "I see you." Her mentor got to let her know that she heard her - the real her - and she was still going to be there. That's the miracle of mentoring.

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee - Ki Kim & Maria Perales

"Ki, you are a very cool mentor. You listened to me when I had something to say and gave me your advice about similar situations . You are thoughtful and sweet. Thank you so much for your commitment to the mentoring program and me. You have influenced alot of the changes I’ve decided to make in my life. You are one of the many people that have given me a little bit more to think about which I love and I am so grateful for. Thank you so much (and please forgive me if I was such a brat with you). I am happy for having you as a mentor. You are unique which is what makes you so special to me and others".

Sincerely & with much love,

Maria Perales

Tony's Blog: We have it in our power to begin the world over again

Dear Friends,

When I woke up this morning my heart was full. There is something in the air. It smells like optimism, sounds like enthusiasm and feels like love. It comes in the form of an outpouring of support for our dream of an Urban Oasis for teens in the heart of the city.

That feeling has since given way to deep reflection as I realize that this is the day that we celebrate the life of another man who had a dream: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., visionary leader and advocate for human rights for all. Unfortunately we must also reflect upon his death in 1968 at the hands of those who felt that such a vision could be silenced. It cannot. His life was ended, but his voice lives on.

I call upon the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for guidance in our quest for cultural renewal. I call on his legacy to fuel our courage to check the ignorance of racism, born from hatred which in turn is born from fear. We need the memory of MLK to incite the promise of Obama that is threatened by incivility and the disingenuousness of political discourse. A political solution without a cultural shift will be short-lived. The very work that we do at Youth Mentoring Connection is aimed directly at such a shift. Our best hope is in understanding our interconnectedness, revisiting old wisdom, understanding new ways of connecting (social networking, media outreach, etc.) and practicing compassion toward our youth and their communities. We’ll have to use all these tools and our greatest levels of creativity.

Yet, as our name implies, it comes down to developing a culture of mentoring. It comes down to our ability to proliferate the number of adults who will approach our youth in the spirit of “Sawubona” (Zulu for “I see you”), to recognize the “gifts” they were each born into this world to share. Indeed to recognize that the most wounded of them carry deep medicine that we all need, and by helping them heal we learn to heal the entire culture.

Mentoring as practiced at YMC is a community endeavor rooted in the imagination of old wisdom. The word comes from Homer’s Odyssey and involves the healing of a culture wracked by war. “Mentor” becomes guide for the young prince Telemachus and inspires him to find his voice and go on the necessary journey into adulthood. The ultimate conclusion is that the gifts of the youth mingle with that of the elder, thus driving out the forces of fear. I believe that is our battle today. If we defeat fear, we can face ourselves, face our individual and collective wounds, and build the compassionate society that has always been the promise of America.

Thomas Paine wrote, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

What an amazing thing, this human capacity to reinvent ourselves; to start anew. Let’s use the symbolism of a new year and the inspiration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to inspire us to move our society to where all peoples can finally say:

"Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

yours in peace,

Tony