Friday's Follow-Up

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee - Carrie & Brizaneny
Brizaneny thanks Carrie for being a caring mentor.

Warner Brother - Poetry
The Mentors and Mentees share their feelings through poetry. Some inspiring moments occur.

Adams II-Superheroes
At Adams Middle School session, the mentees & mentors create their own superheroes.

It's going to be a crazy, lazy weekend with wonderful warm days. As the sun shines so brightly on LA, so does it shine brightly on YMC and all the tremendous good that they do. Under the inspired direction of Tony LoRe, YMC has changed the lives of both mentors and mentees for the better, helping to create a better LA. I have been privileged to be a part of this wonderful, sometimes crazy group. No matter where I end up, I know I will always be a part of YMC.

Adieu mes amis. You are always in my heart! Keep up the good work and the fight!
Love to you all, La judy

Friday

Adams II- Superheroes

At this Adams Middle school session, the mentees and mentors had the opportunity to create their own superheroes. Each match had to create a positive superhero with unique and special powers. Some of the costumes turn out to be really creative and fun. We had superheroes that helped people with their powers of love and compassion. Other had powers that will make smile when you are sad. Overall the each match had a chance to have fun by helping each other.

Warner Brothers- Poetry

At our Warner Brothers mentoring session yesterday, the mentors and mentees had the opportunity to express themselves using one of the rawest forms of communication. Poetry was written and read with the help and guidance of Street Poets. Street Poets not only shared some of their amazing, deep, and real poems but they helped create a space where our young people felt safe to not only write about their stories but also share them with the room. The poem below is from one of our young men who was forced to move away from his family in the Central Valley and move in with his aunt in South Central. The problems and violence that threatened the safety of this young man and his family forced him to leave and continue his life else where. His poem reflects the emotions he struggles with as this process continues.

When I speak
I start to panic
Trying to find the right words
Trying to find the right verse
To express how I feel
I feel empty
I feel sad
Or do I feel proud of myself
I left my family to better myself
To set an example for my brother
That would make my dad proud
I left so my mom wouldn’t cry
When she saw me out there
No more calls from the school
Giving them bad news
No more calls from the cops
Telling them they had to come pick me up
I look at myself in the mirror to think
Where I’m I, did I do the right thing leaving my family?
They say its ok, I got a new start
I better myself no more problems,
I don’t have to watch my back
Bit when I speak to myself
I still feel empty inside.
I wish my family could see
And be here for me
But instead we are miles apart
I hear their voice on the phone
Its not the same
Sometimes I don’t know how I feel
But sometime when I speak
I’m proud of myself.
I reached my goal that I promised my dad,
I did what some homies told me was WACK
But I think about it
So now when I speak
I do it to get ahead in my life
I don’t know how I feel thought
But I guess that’s life.

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- Carrie & Brizaneny

"Carrie, you are a phenomenal mentor. I have learned so much about you and I was able to express myself with you. You always made a way to make me feel comfortable around you. I am glad we made commitments and agreements with each other. You have a fantastic personality and I will always you were there for me when I needed someone. You are a great person and thanks for caring about my future".

-Brizaneny

Friday's Follow-Up

"The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Steven Biko

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee - Linzi & Evelyn
Evelyn thanks her mentor for being someone she can talk to during hard times.

What to Say When Summoned for Jury Duty
Agueda writes about how the criminal justice system is far more interested in the incarceration business instead of the rehabilitation business.

Youth Mentoring - Survivor Style
Check out the video and see the kind of fun you can have!

Surf session will be coming up soon. But the weather this weekend may be chilly and cold...?

Have a good one!
La Judy

Youth Mentoring- Survivor Style

Last Wednesday, mentors and mentees from our Odyssey program participated in our “Survivor” session – the supreme ordeal of the mentoring relationship!  Actually, as you will see, Survivor is a lot of fun – but it does test the teamwork and determination of all or our mentors and mentees.


Check out the video below to see how much fun we had! Would love your comments and feel free to share it with your friends using the links below to share on Facebook, email it to friends and more. 
 

Youth Mentoring Connection: Survivor! from Emily M on Vimeo.

What to Say When Summoned for Jury Duty

How I Got Out of Jury Duty...By Telling the Truth

There is no question that our prison system is a private business whose main interest is incarcerating individuals because of the profit incentives. The prison industrial complex has been affecting our communities in a very serious way for a few decades now. The number of individuals who have been incarcerated over the past 10 years has dramatically increased even though crime rates have not increased at the same rate. Since the three strikes law was passed in the mid 1990’s, the number of individuals who have been given life sentences has gone up considerably; if the types of crimes that are being prosecuted are analyzed you find that many of these individuals are now incarcerated for life for crimes that are not too serious. Once an individual is part of the states criminal system it is extremely difficult for their past not to be used against them. The justice system claims to be interested in a person’s rehabilitation but how is that being accomplished when individuals are given life sentences without the possibility of parole once they have been charged with 3 felonies? These are the same individuals who were released from prison before and put into the same conditions that got them into prison in the first place.

Many argue that not every individual chooses to fully participate in the rehabilitation process and that they choose to go right back into the “lifestyle.” While that argument may apply to some individuals, every person with a record cannot be assumed to be a criminal for life. If the state and federal government really made an effort to fund truly effective rehabilitation programs, fix the current education system, fund non-profits or programs that help individuals become productive members of society then perhaps those same individuals would not end up back in prison. California now spends 10 percent of its operating budget on incarcerating individuals in state prisons. The private companies who provide prisons with their supplies now look at the number of third or fourth graders who are failing in school to estimate the number of beds they will be supplying the prisons with. At such a young age, our youth is already being tracked into the criminal system. Instead of looking at the number of failing students to research how the education system can be reformed, our government is perpetuating the school-to-prison pipeline. Is it any surprise that this same government is not committed to the true rehabilitation of individuals? There is no clear investment in our youth and until our government and society really works to discover and nurture their individual gifts our youth will not reach their full potential.

With such knowledge it was no surprise to read an article about a man who was released from jury duty after telling the Judge that he was invested in the rehabilitation of individuals. I guess we don’t have to lie to try and get out of jury duty, we can just tell the court system that we are invested in our people and our communities and that will work just fine.


Agueda