New Mexico
Foster Youth Initiative
“Ask Me Who I Am”
Words and Art by New Mexico Foster Youth
GEF greatly appreciates the support of the McCune Charitable Foundation for their support of these older foster youth arts project.
Older CYFD foster youth participated in creativity workshops conducted by Valerie Martinez and Littleglobe to generate writing, poetry and art that explored/reflected their particular struggles and successes. Artists mentored youth through creative engagement.
This initiative works with older youth in foster care and independent living programs with the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD). The project engaged youth in creative exercises that enabled them to generate writing, poetry and art that explores and reflects their personal struggles, successes, and dreams.
Independent Living Conference workshops in Albuquerque and Las Cruces included 70 youth who opened their creativity. Nine youth agreed to have their poems published in the anthology ”Ask Me Who I Am”. It reveals powerful stories of struggle, survival, sorrow, humor, reality and dreams. Two readings highlighting these youthful poets were held in Santa Fe and one in Albuquerque. The reading at Collected Works, Santa Fe, was hosted by Ali MacGraw and was covered by KOAT-TV Albuquerque. Click here to watch the video. In addition the project was covered by the Santa Fe New Mexican in a Pasatiempo article. This project was funded through a generous grant from the McCune Charitable Foundation.
Joe Ray
As far as the experience: WOW….these youth and their words are powerful…you can’t help but feel touched by their experiences and their hope for the future. The listener is taken out of their day-to-day world and to enter the realistic world of foster youth…and their optimism for the future. One will feel respect and admiration for each youth….there is no doubt about that. It is something everyone owes themselves to experience.
All proceeds from book sales benefits the Global Education Fund older foster youth program.
BUY AN ANTHOLOGY NOW TO SUPPORT FOSTER YOUTH IN NEW MEXICO
ARTISTIC AND LIFE SKILLS MENTORSHIP FOR OLDER FOSTER YOUTH
A video of this successful program will be forthcoming.
Older youth in or transitioning from CYFD foster care are perhaps the most at-risk and challenged young people in New Mexico. Their lives have often been defined by absence and inconsistency; they lack the sustained care of a loving family. Most have witnessed and endured abuse and neglect living in numerous foster homes. All face a tenuous future. Yet, they are remarkably creative. Their writing and art reflect deep wells of imagination and expression that rise from a lifetime of challenges.
Excerpt from poem by Lauren:
Down on the floor I would stay
Stay there crying, dying, bleeding
Bleeding, burning from your fist hitting my face
My face My body My Soul
Hurting
Hurting because every time I opened my eyes I would see you walking away
To address the lack resources for youth to develop their artistic talents, GEF conducted a year-long creative apprentice program in partnership with Valerie Martinez and Littleglobe. Professional writers and artists worked closely with 4 youth with particular promise and who have expressed a deep desire to develop their creative talents. The project is a continuation of the 2010 GEF project which engaged over a 100 CYFD youth in writing and art workshops to produced an anthology of their work published in December 2010.
Creative adult mentors provided consistent and dedicated attention and are deeply committed to long-term mentoring of young artists. The result was a presentation of individual projects in both visual arts and poetry.
Youth Sex Trafficking Awareness
GEF appreciates the support of the Con Alma Health Foundation in support of research funds to provide awareness to students in schools statewide on protecting themselves from sexual predators and entrapment.
In November 2011, GEF kicked off its Anti-Sex Trafficking of U.S. Youth Campaign in partnership with Santa Fe’s Coordinated Community Response Council (SF-CCRC) with a filming of the documentary “Cargo: Innocence Lost” (http://www.cargoinnocencelost.com/) , by Michael Cory Davis. This compelling documentary unveils the dark underworld of youth sex trafficking through compelling interviews with some of the country’s top officials on the subject, victims’ advocates, and victims themselves who were rescued in Texas.
Special Guests Tina Frundt, a victim of sex trafficking from the age of 12 and founder of Courtney’s House, (http://www.courtneyshouse.org ) shelter in Washington DC, which helps youth escape forced prostitution, and Dr. Barbara Goldman, Director of New Mexico Anti-Trafficking Task Force through the office of the Attorney General’s office, discussed how domestic youth sex trafficking impacts Santa Fe and New Mexico, how to recognize it, and how to report it, and what is being done about it.
Protect, Heal and Thrive
Global Education Fund’s mission is to bring awareness of these issues to the citizens of New Mexico and the extent of this horrendous problem in our own state and to inform them how they can be part of the solution.
WHAT GEF IS DOING:
Protect: Awareness
1. Encourage community awareness: showing of documentary “Cargo: Innocence Lost”.
2. Encourage youth awareness: School Curriculum. GEF received a grant from Con Alma Health Foundation to hire Dr. Susan Travis, from Ruidoso, Director of work group in her region and CEO of OATH (Executive Director of New Mexico Organized Against Human Trafficking), a 501c3 organization dedicated to educating New Mexico communities about the pervasiveness of human trafficking, increasing public awareness, identifying local cases, empowering people with more effective tools aimed at preventing victimization, promoting effective rights-based responses to modern slavery, and fostering both non-governmental and governmental partnerships in joint action against human trafficking.
Dr. Travis will initiate a comprehensive search and analysis of current “best practices” as they relate to the early teen age years, including emotional and learning considerations. She will review relevant literature, write summaries, list opposing research, and annotate how this research is relevant to educate public school students. The goal of the study is to begin the process of develop comprehensive information leading to the creation of a curricula based on prevention and awareness-of-human-trafficking for youth in New Mexico’s public schools.
HEAL and THRIVE: Survive
GEF has requested a grant from the McCune Charitable Foundation to conduct a study that will explore and document the nature of youth sex trafficking in New Mexico including services available and level of knowledge of service personnel from both state and private organizations.
This and the Con Alma Health Foundation report are GEF’s first steps to assist the State in protecting, preventing, and supporting young victims. The empirical data provided regarding youth sex trafficking will help restore a youth’s self worth and productivity by giving the State the data they need to properly and effectively deal with this issue.
The NM Attorney General’s office has concentrated on adult trafficking. GEF will focus on helping youth. Many agencies, including CYFD, that deal with at-risk youth, foster youth, homeless youth and youth in detention have little information about the youth trafficking issue, how to identify these young victims or how to serve them. We want to change that.