Cross-posted on Amplify
I am a 17-year-old high school student who has worked to improve adolescent sexual reproductive health and rights for a several years. I work with other amazing young people from around the country and around the world who are active in their communities. We are people who testify at school board meetings and demand for our right to complete information about sexual health, peer educators who reach out to friends in need and give life-saving information and support, youth who develop groundbreaking campaigns to increase contraceptive use among young people. We are a movement, proving that young people are part of the solution, not the problem.
Last weekend, over a 100 of us youth activists (aged 14-15) gathered in Washington, DC for the 2010 Urban Retreat, a conference that included training sessions on organizing, working with the media, peer education, grassroots activism, and more. Our weekend culminated with a lobby day, where we went to Capitol Hill to make our voices heard and meet with our legislators.
I am from North Carolina, and had the opportunity to meet with staff from Senator Richard Burr’s office, Senator Kay Hagen’s office, and Rep. David Price’s office. We made the case for ending funding for ineffective abstinence-only programs and to support comprehensive sex education both domestically and internationally. We shared stories of what it is really like for teens here in the real world. We are told Just Say no during the day at school, and inundated with sexually charged messages from music, TV, and the Internet at night. This leads to so many damaging myths and misinformation among youth, and leads to a devastatingly high teen pregnancy rate. Abstinence-only sex ed. really isn’t education at all, very little factual information is taught.
We took this message to congress with over 100 office visits with congress members from all over the country! At the Urban Retreat lobby day, we young people made out voices heard.