************************ Empowering and Inspiring Communities ************************ Building Local and National Community Bridges
"Our youth are not failing the system; the system is failing our youth. Ironically, the very youth who are being treated the worst are the young people who are going to lead us out of this nightmare."
- Rachel Jackson
"Guard your light and protect it. Move it forward into the world and be fully confident that if we connect light to light to light, and join the lights together of the one billion young people in our world today, we will be enough to set our whole planet aglow."
- Hafsat Abiola
WE UNDERSTAND
That the core cause of homelessness is a break down within and the loss of - healthy and empowered communities. Whether those communities are familial, urban, national, or global - the fact still remains - communities need certain things to simply survive. They also need specific things to sustain themselves and thrive on their own. In order to communicate and work harmoniously with other communities, certain needs must be met. Communities exist, so that Humans may have a source and platform for free expression; that we may share with one another our hopes and dreams; that we may learn to overcome our common fears and ailments. Each one of these levels of community are essential for the Human Being. It is our job as people, to make sure that all of these needs are met within every community - no matter where or who they are - so long as the communities are willing to practice empowering and uplifting one another, instead of breaking one another down.
VISION STATEMENT
We envision a harmonious world where respectful and compassionate communities work with one another, celebrating the authenticity and diversity of our cultures, strengthening the integrity of our collective society, learning new ways of living without fear, resolving any issues that cause imbalance to the collective, and establishing justice and full equality for all.
MISSION STATEMENT
We raise awareness of the homeless youth epidemic in America, and encourage positive social change through community awareness training, youth activism, and direct action. We mentor and empower youth to advocate for themselves and their community. We celebrate cultural diversity, by building positive bridges between communities; and we teach mutual mentorship to inspire and empower the public through positive personal, local, and national activism.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
"This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a..... predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
- Robert F. Kennedy
Our Values
We... *Envision *Create *Express *Cultivate
...all things that bring us in tune
with a harmonious world.
We... *Inspire *Protect *Support *Serve *Empower
...ourselves and one another.
We... *Celebrate *Shine *Heal *Unify
...our diverse communities into
one harmonious world.
"You can never stop; and as older people, we have to learn how to take leadership from the youth and I guess I would say that this is what I'm attempting to do right now."
- Angela Davis
“This is a time for bold measures. This is the country, and you are the generation.”
- Bono
Integrity
Accountability
Maturity
Responsibility
Enlightenment
Authenticity
Leadership
"Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"In less than a century we have experienced great movement. The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil rights movement! The peace movement! The human rights movement! The solidarity movement! The women's movement! The disability movement! The disarmament movement! The queer rights movement! The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation! Is there any reason to believe we are done?"
- Holly Near
"Our goal is to establish a permanent Youth Assembly on the global level that would serve to represent the voices, ideas, concerns and solutions of youth to the issues that directly affect their lives."
- Benjamin Quinto
"It's easy to become hopeless. So people must have hope: the human brain, the resilience of nature, the energy of young people and the sort of inspiration that you see from so many hundreds of people who tackle tasks that are impossible and never give up and succeed."
- Jane Goodall
"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation."
- Pearl S. Buck
"People don't see hunger in front of them so they are not directly affected. What I am doing is connecting young people to the issue."
- Lauren Bush
"Children organizing for political rights will probably be treated initially with ridicule and derision, and then with misunderstanding and perhaps eventually violence if the experience of the struggle for women's suffrage is any precedent. Undoubtedly the greatest obstacle to be overcome is the adult refusal to acknowledge that children suffer political discrimination and exclusion. Adults do not perceive children as a minority group but as helpless, inexperienced, defenseless young people who need protection. Adult paternalism seeks to protect and if in this process it curtails freedom, truncates potential and destroys civil liberties this is taken to be incidental. The belief in the legitimacy of paternalism justifies and cements the existing power relationships between adults and young people. This attitude must be confronted, challenged and refuted if young people are to secure their political rights."
- Bob Franklin on "The Rights of Children"
