Reaching The Youth?

I just recently had the desire to reach out to at risk youth & was welcomed by zero programs in progress to accomplish this. I wanted to tell the youth who were going down a path I'm familiar with about the ugly realities. I feel it is my duty to give an accurate portrayal of the so-called street life. There are some great things in the street life but many more terrible things outweigh the positive. Some things are very fun but once you get the proper perspective & you see the devastation you & others like you have caused it weighs heavily on you like an ever present anvil. Keep in mind, those who are in the street life are young children & do not consider the lasting effects of their actions. Another reason when society sees them on a path likely to prison or early death we as a people should do everything we can so they can begin a path away from drugs, addiction, violence, etc. It should now be about looking to the future because whether we want to face the fact of the matter, these children that are being basically thrown away, are our tomorrow. When we allow our leaders to coax us from doing all we can to preserve everyone's future we become a doomed society with a bleak future.

All these things I had no idea about when I was a teenager & sadly I believe the level of awareness has declined dramatically over the past decade. I say that because the distractions are much greater now with things like Facebook, Twitter, etc. It's hard to be aware of controversial facts of life while updating your status on a website. I don't think websites are nefarious or anything like that, it just makes things a little more difficult. I come back to my point, why don't prisons at least have an option for prisoners to attempt to deter the next generation. Why isn't this a priority to lower future crime rates? It can only make you wonder, does the present leadership really care about stopping crime? I don't know the answer to that question but I'm prone to think they don't.

I want to reach out to the youth of any community because I want to try to save them from a lot of heartache & pain. I would like to at least try because I know nothing is a cure all solution for problems like these. Would you have loved for a person to give you a glimpse into your possible future from a person who knows that area very well.

I'll hope against hope I'll get a chance to shed a little light to the youth going through troubles.