This is a little story about me. My name is Ali and I’m seventeen years old. I was born in Harlem, but I have lived all over.
For a while it seemed like family and friends were passing on month after month. First it was my grandmother, then two other family members.
My mother became distant when my stepfather and my grandfather died. She quit her job and started taking vacations every month. I guess it was her way of avoiding reality.
I was getting kicked out of school left and right. I turned into a problem child and my moms couldn’t handle me. She sent me to my father, and he sent me upstate to live with my other grandmother.
Nobody was really giving me discipline so I did what I wanted to. I ended up getting locked up, but even when I got out I still did what I wanted. I violated probation and got put into a group home.
Going through so many deaths and being moved around built up anger in me.
I was fifteen when the judge decided to send me back down south with my mother. She had moved to a different area down south and yet again I was in a different city where I didn’t want to be.
Despite the changes I ended up changing my ways a little. I started going to school; I was earning B’s and C’s, sometimes even A’s. I was doing great until my moms started to put her husband over me.
I started to distance myself. I was staying in a house where I didn’t feel comfortable. I started skipping school all over again and getting back in trouble.
With only $45 in my pocket and a bus ticket I just packed my stuff up and left without telling anyone. My pops got in touch with me and I ended back upstate.
I registered for school, but later I stopped going because I wasn’t learning anything and on top of that I was moving from house to house again. I felt like I wouldn’t become anything because I was around people and family that had doubts about me.
One day my brother pulled me aside and told me I had to do better while I was still young. I had enough of being told I was not going to make it and my brother’s words gave me an extra push.
I heard about Youth Action YouthBuild East Harlem from a graduate who worked in my building. That same day I went straight to YouthBuild to fill out the application.
It felt good to do something on my own.
All I ever wanted to do was better myself. I’m not doing this for nobody else but myself. It’s time for me to get it together. I don’t want to end up on these streets forever.