The youth will be the future leaders of our country and as such needs a good and strong foundation to be good leaders and citizens someday. However, there is too much violence in our surroundings right now that we may want to question whether our youth are seeing good role models to emulate in the future. Conflicts in and out of the country are reported on the news day in and day out – without fail. Divorce is common, leaving behind young kids without both parents to guide and mold them as they grow up.
Also, overexposure to unsupervised hours spent surfing the Internet can lead the youth to believe that certain acts are acceptable when in reality they are not. They can access sites that they are not supposed to visit exposing them to pornography. Hence, teenage pregnancy is no longer surprising. Drugs and alcohol abuse is also a constant threat and many youths are already hooked into it. Does the future still look bright when the majority of our youth are riddled with all these problems on a daily basis?
…A Teen Summit exploring violence-related issues and other youth topics will be held April 1 at noon at the Booker T. Washington Center, 1720 Holland St.
The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Mothers Against Teen Violence, an Erie-based anti-violence group founded in 2010 by community activist Sonya Arrington, in partnership with the Youth Leadership Institute of Erie.
“This is a platform for our youth to