Teen Power Going Strong
Teen Power formed through a partnership with Urban 4-H Youth Development, El Rio Recreation Center, Neighborhood House and the Neighborhood Learning Community in 2008. Here’s what some of the youth wrote about the program. “First it was a bunch of us creating beats and trying spoken word. Then the youth workers created a space for us to explore our talents more. We all love music in some way and support the group through our strengths. Some of us rap, some of us dance, some of us organize, and some of us create visuals. We decided on the name Teen Power, because we wanted power within our community. Sometimes adults don’t think youth care or have opinions about what’s going on around them. Through this group we have been able to show our community that we do care and that we are leaders. We have recorded political songs, such as: Go Vote, No More War, Life Struggles, and Discrimination. These songs made people take us seriously. We have also recorded tracks for fun to make you want to dance and to show how we can work together. Besides working on music, we want to be good citizens.”
This Spring Teen Power has been very busy, creating new music, performing, conducting youth-led evaluations and even writing grants! The group wrote and was awarded a small grant through the MN 4-H Foundation for their Kid Power program idea. Kid Power will be a day camp experience for younger kids in the community to learn about dance, song, writing, video editing and more from older youth. Youth in the Teen Power program will plan and lead this mentoring opportunity to serve as role models and teach younger kids what they’ve learned from the program. In April, Teen Power performed at the Urban 4-H Showcase Event and presented their Too Cool video at the project fair (which was selected for the Most Motivated/Self Inspired Award). Members of Teen Power also were awarded 1st, 2nd, and 4th place prices for their vocal performances and 1st place in spoken word. The best part of the day was during the judges break when Teen Power showed their true leadership skills by inviting the group of 200 youth and families on stage to dance to music and get to know each other better. They sure know how to pump up the crowd!
