Orchestrating a new way to move

For years, systems have pushed the lie that youth are born "high-risk," careless, and rebellious with stories of victim-blaming that punish, and label the younger generation based on instability and youth development.

But the truth is youth are not biologically prone to foolish or rebellious choices. Youth are born into a system that for decades has been shaped by harmful narratives, policies and practices that dismiss the systemic inequities.

Lack of robust public transit, unsafe roads, unaffordable realities from licensing, ticketing, gas prices, car dependency, and the disembodied culture of digital socialization that forces us to make consistent daily decisions consenting to isolation, manufactured convenience and a forced culture of hustling for the potential to experience the freedom, joys and resources to move and thrive.

Youth know what this feels like and it steeps deeper, because this didn’t just happen in one day. From the history of forced labor, school-to-prison pipeline, removal from families, stigmatization and the ongoing flight for basic economic and political rights. We see systemic issues intensifying today with Black, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, disabled and low-income youth, but when the systemic conditions have been tough, our survival has been at length our imagination.

We as everyday youth, have always envisioned pressing forward for freedom and justice even in the most tokenizing and marginalized times. We cultivated joy in scarcity, and built wholesome and eclectic cultures amid erasure from the stories, to the policies and practices.

We know what has saved us. Us.

Freedom as a way of life is about living beyond survival and coping. A life focused on fulfilling our wildest dreams and our most creative pursuits.

Finally, we are no longer asking to have a voice. We are claiming our true stories, our true creativity and new ways of life to not only survival but transform our lives.