South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
1331 Elmwood Avenue
Suite 140
Columbia, SC 29201
(803) 771-7700
(803) 771-6916 FAX
Summerville Office
(843) 879-0874
Download the complete 2008 Teen Expressions: My Life My Legacy My Voice book (pdf)
For the past six years Teen Expressions has provided all of us a glimpse into the lives of South Carolina youth. Submissions of poems, artwork and personal stories allow for each of us to hear about the issue of teen pregnancy through the voice of the generation it impacts most. This year's theme allowed for some especially insightful submissions that you are sure to enjoy. In the following pages, you will hear about...
Over 200 youth submitted entries this year - by far the most submissions in the six-year history of Teen Expressions. Each and every one of the youth who submitted an entry deserves congratulations for their talent and a thank you for sharing their stories with us.
A special thanks to this year's judging panel made up of youth: Mallory Woods, Jasmine
Horton, and Adrian Holland and youth serving professionals: Casey Fields and Eric Bellamy.
Their insight, along with the hard work of SC Campaign staff Zenica Chatman and Cayci
Banks, has helped to make this year's Teen Expressions contest come alive.
We hope you will enjoy - and take time to listen to - the voices of South Carolina's youth!
Forrest L. Alton, MSPH,CHES
Executive Director
One Voice by Brandon, 15 One voice can be strong. Strong enough to get across, The point that teen pregnancy really costs. One voice can tell, Those people who might not know it well, The problems that teen pregnancy entails. One voice can show, What their parents already know, That parenting is not as easy as they show. One voice can make them see, How hard it will be, Having a baby as a teen. One voice can make them think, About whether or not they are on the brink, Of throwing their life out of sync. That voice can come from anyone. My friend you could be the one.
I Want Out
Shanace, 18
Can I have your attention for a minute, just enough time to lay some things out on the table? In this life I live, I spend a lot of time thinking and wondering how things got this way. Questioning how my mother continues to struggle even when she works so hard. Asking why my friends choose the fast lane, instead of living life day by day. Sometimes I'm stuck in a daze, traveling through a different maze every ten seconds, trying to find a way out, or just a way through. Everyday is a life lesson learned and a life where every mistake is a stepping stone. Being stuck on the inside looking out, is sometimes only a dream.
Where I live it's very common to be awakened in the middle of the night by gun shots, seeing people laying on the ground and hiding behind cars, dodging the chance of being shot. Everyday we face trials and tribulations. The hurt is deep within our hearts. You see, the people that are on the outside looking in don't know how this life is. They don't really know how living it feels. Some have it harder than others, but we are all considered as one. Most people never really look at the big picture. Not knowing that some of us live life without a father, a father that left our mothers alone in this struggle, or because he was eliminated by today's world. Some of us look for ways out, wanting more and believing that we should have more. Others fall into this fiery pit and except that this is where we are suppose to stay. They feel sorry for themselves and give up, thinking that there is no way out. Next, they turn to drugs. Only because they live a life where sometimes there isn't anything in their house to eat. They see this as a way of survival. Others turn to sex, selling their bodies, hoping to make enough to make it to the next day. All because they live in a house where both parents do drugs. This leads to more pain, time in jail, death, diseases, drug use and teen pregnancy. Can you for a second, put yourself in predicaments like this, where you wake up each morning hoping to die? Attending a school where the students are set up for failure. How about the fact that kids as young as thirteen sell drugs, use drugs and are even having sex? Think about living in a house where your mother's boyfriend constantly sexually assaults you. It hurts to know that the things we go through may never change. Knowing that the future may be worse than the past. Some kids cry themselves to sleep at night because of starvation. They hurt even more because life seems unfair. We dream big dreams to give us faith. Something that's hard to come about, living in a town where crime and violence have you scared to walk outside. The fear of being raped murdered or robbed. My friend was raped, six months later she died because of the damage that was done to her. This boy in my class, his father was killed in a drive by, innocent by stander. My neighbor is a foster child, her mother died while giving birth and her father was too young to be a dad. What about the ten year old that lives on the corner by the liquor store, his mother is on drugs, and his father is nowhere to be found. His older brother is lost in the streets and his fifteen year old sister, pregnant. He has no one to turn to and he feels lost in this struggle. As for my life, it too has its twists and turns, and I sometimes ask the big question. WHY? Why do the young men of today only think about how many girls they have sex with, and the young girls fall for the tricks that they play? How can a ten year old know more about sex and drugs than a seventeen year old? Who is responsible for all this? What can we do to get out? Where will these things lead us? When will it stop? I guess we will never come to a conclusion, because that's just how life works. We, the children, sometimes never understand the way things work, and why things happen the way they do. I hope that you see things the same as I do, and choose to become better.
