Empowering Youth & Families

When I arrived in the United States, I didn't know what to do, where to go, but some people helped me get comfortable, earn some money for future and then I moved in house and enrolled to a school to improve my language skills and help me adapt to my new surroundings. Unfortunately, I fell in with the wrong crowd and got caught with a tech pen at my friend's school. It was a wake-up call for me and I've learned from my past mistakes. They taught me that success requires hard work and dedicated, and that i need to be careful with the friends and people around me. And I'm trying to fight for build a better life for myself and family and that i can make my dreams a reality.

I've have a close friend who has turned into my family and they got me through a lot. The first time I found a substance in my mom's room they were the first ones that I called and they helped me through it and told me how to go about things.

Some things that trigger me are yelling, arguing, and cruel words. One time I was triggered when my mother and I had an argument and she called me a monster. This sent me straight to tears and became violent. I said some cruel things and did things I regret now. If l could go back, I'd stop, take a breather, go on a walk, and then return and try to explain and talk to my mom about the situation calmly.

One day I brought money to school so I could buy a bag of chips. A kid walked by and stole the chips off of my plate and this is where made my first mistake. Instead of telling a staff member I went to go handle it myself and we got into a verbal exchange. Was it worth it? No in the long run, this will affect you and walking away would have completely avoided this

When I think about family the only thing that comes to mind is my sisters, they're honestly all have besides my dad. I would go through it all 1,000 times over again if that meant that got one more minute with my sisters around. They've helped me get through my court issues, depression, everything. The moral of this is, as long as you have people you consider your family you can get past anything in life. I love my sisters, would they trade me for a makeup palette and a McDonald's McClure? Most definitely but they're all I have. It IS possible to change who you are don't give up.

People have told me that I'm not going to be anything in life, and when you grow up around nothing you learn to be more than that no matter how hard you have to work for it. Being the only boy also meant that I had more responsibilities, like protecting my sisters, showing them how men should treat them, and that no matter what we'll always have each other.

In life you are supposed to fail. Over and over and over again, it's just apart of living. It's the people who get up and keep going every day and learn from their failures that are truly great. I failed at keeping myself in check and having humility. This failure brought me down to my knees and made me show my grit by not giving up no matter how many times got pushed down or told it's not going to happen. But i made it work, made it happen. persevered through the challenge and learned from my failure. All that can be done now is to keep my head straight and keep going through life, and to be prepared for the next failure and to learn from it and keep trucking along.

In my future I will turn out to be a successful Fashion Designer. I will be working hard for my goals, and staying focused on what I need to get to my goals. Like, over the summer I will be making different shirts and trying different designs on different clothes. To get to that point, I would have to change sleeping all day through out the summer and staying consistent with what I want to do. I would have to stay close to positive energy, and what motivates me the most to push me to my goals.

I was charged one time and then had a chance to fix myself and was put in teen court. Then I made the same mistake again and was booked. At that point I was lost, I was hurting myself just as much as others. I lost all trust from the people I love. It put a huge toll on my relationship with friends and family. So I finally figured out that I need to change. Fix myself, be happy, make better choices. Now I think before I act. Because the end of the day it will be my life I mess up NO ONE ELSES. I feel I just needed help I was lost I wasn't happy I thought my choices made me happy but they made me more unhappy. If we aren't' happy we can't better ourselves, we think of the negative. But in these situations we need to think positive change for the better. So we can be happy.

When I talk about my situation it's not to have people feel bad for me but to learn off of it. I've let people lie to me, take advantage of me, play with my feelings and have done nothing to stop it. Growing up with a addict mom isn't the easiest but when you have sisters it's easier. I've been through everything with my sisters and honestly if didn't have them I'd probably be in jail right now.