Thursday, July 10, 2008
SWOP homepageSummer Intern Voices
Our Summer Youth Intern Program has officially started and so far it's been a huge success! We have 8 great young women building relationships, in trainings, and inspiring the rest of us to keep up! Here's a blog from one intern Tracy. Keep on the look out for more through the rest of the summer.
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Hi everyone my name is Tracy Chacon, and I’m an intern at SWOP this summer. Life isn’t always easy. Take it from me I have been on my own since I was 14 years old and I have had to learn a lot. All through high school I was on my own and it was really hard finding information about college. But I have always known about the military and I always heard they would pay for college. So I had to TAKE CONTROL of my life and I decided I wanted more information about college instead. It’s kind of sad that a 15 year old had to go out and get information about college on their own whereas the military recruiters come find you.
You see, I have 5 brothers and none of them have finished high school much less even thought about college and neither of my parents have gone to college. That’s exactly why young people like me need other information made available to them so that we know that the military is not the only option. I know for a fact that the reason military recruiters target people of color is because they know we don’t have money for college and some of us would do whatever it took to get there, even risking our lives.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said from his letter from Birmingham jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” For me it is unjust for my personal information to be automatically given out to military recruiters without my consent. Why don’t they send it to colleges or universities instead? That’s why we have to TAKE CONTROL and get educated, youth must be involved as much as possible to make sure our schools have the information we need to get to college. It is up to us as young people to make a difference and to demand equal opportunities for all. We are the leaders of now.
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Hi everyone my name is Tracy Chacon, and I’m an intern at SWOP this summer. Life isn’t always easy. Take it from me I have been on my own since I was 14 years old and I have had to learn a lot. All through high school I was on my own and it was really hard finding information about college. But I have always known about the military and I always heard they would pay for college. So I had to TAKE CONTROL of my life and I decided I wanted more information about college instead. It’s kind of sad that a 15 year old had to go out and get information about college on their own whereas the military recruiters come find you.You see, I have 5 brothers and none of them have finished high school much less even thought about college and neither of my parents have gone to college. That’s exactly why young people like me need other information made available to them so that we know that the military is not the only option. I know for a fact that the reason military recruiters target people of color is because they know we don’t have money for college and some of us would do whatever it took to get there, even risking our lives.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said from his letter from Birmingham jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” For me it is unjust for my personal information to be automatically given out to military recruiters without my consent. Why don’t they send it to colleges or universities instead? That’s why we have to TAKE CONTROL and get educated, youth must be involved as much as possible to make sure our schools have the information we need to get to college. It is up to us as young people to make a difference and to demand equal opportunities for all. We are the leaders of now.
Labels: counter recruitment, military recruitment, SWOP, SWOP internship
