Excerpt from article featuring quote from WCW organizer:
“People are sitting in there talking about the youth of America but the
fact is Mrs. Bush’s husband is cutting money from groups that help
children so he can send mostly poor and impoverished youth off to fight
in Iraq because the military has unrestricted access to our schools,”
said Hoosier protester Kelly McGuire, who was holding a sign that read
“The World Can’t Wait: Stop Bush” in one hand and a bullhorn in the
other hand. “If we want to go to college and we can’t afford it, there
is no choice but to join the military. The only way to get to college
is to get a gun.”
First lady speaks at IUPUI
Bush promotes helping youth in speech Tuesday
By David A. Nosko
| Indiana Daily Student | Thursday, June 08, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS — First lady Laura Bush
swung through the Hoosier heartland Tuesday to share her love and
dedication to American young people, saying adults are the most
instrumental agent of positive direction and change for millions of
at-risk children across the country.
“When adults offer young people a chance, their love and support can
show struggling youth the hope that lies beyond their future, sometimes
that hope makes all the difference,” Bush told a gathering of about 150
Midwest community members during the Helping America’s Youth first
regional conference at the IUPUI campus near downtown Indianapolis.
The regional conference follows an Oct. 2005 White House Conference on
Helping America’s Youth held at Howard University in Washington D.C.,
at which more than 500 parents, civic leaders, faith-based and
community service providers, foundations, educators, researchers and
experts in child development convened to discuss modern challenges
young people confront on a daily basis and to develop community
strategies to better improve their safety, health and chances of a
successful future. Bush said she has also traveled across the nation to
visit schools, attend after-school programs and greet the mentors of
young people at social service agencies like Big Brothers Big Sisters.
“The work that each of you do in your communities helping young people
build the knowledge and self-respect they need to live successful lives
is at the very heart of the Helping America’s Youth,” Bush said. “While
the discussions in our state and national capitals are important, the
real work of helping America’s youth is done in our communities through
personal relationships formed in our streets, churches, schools and
homes.”
73 million children under the age of 18 lived in America as of 2003 and
that number is expected to increase to 80 million by 2020, according to
the HAY initiative. About 32 out of 100 children younger than 18 do not
live in a two-parent home, and about 12 million children live in
poverty.
President Bush proposed Helping America’s Youth, a three-year
initiative led by the First Lady, during his 2005 State of the Union
Address. The president said HAY was aimed at showing American young men
an ideal of manhood that respects women and rejects violence.
Bush said young Americans face unique modern challenges like drugs,
gangs, internet predators, media violence and real-life violence, but
that boys seem to suffer more than girls from negative influences
because they are more likely to drop out of school, not attend college,
abuse drugs, join gangs and engage in risky or violent behaviors, and
they have higher levels of illiteracy.
“As children face these greater dangers, they often have fewer people
to turn to for help. More children are raised in single-parent
families, most often without a father,” Bush said. “Millions of
children have one or both parents in prison. Many boys and girls spend
more time alone or with their peers than they do with their families.”
More than 500,000 American children live in foster care and about half
of foster care children graduate from high school, according to the HAY
initiative. About 42 out 100 children from single-mother homes live in
poverty, and child abuse and neglect is reported for 11 out of every
1,000 American children between the ages of 12 and 15.
“(Bush) brings with her a heart as big as Texas, a love of children
that all Americans can see and sense and appreciate,” said Indiana
Governor Mitch Daniels, who helped introduce Mrs. Bush. “In Indiana,
you are in a state that loves children, that knows the values of family
and knows that, really, there is no calling more important than to help
a child take those first essential steps in life. For all the love we
feel for our kids we have a long way to go in this state and perhaps
you feel the same way about yours.”
Daniels said the most basic task for humanity is to enhance the
protection of individual personal safety. He said a few of the
challenges facing Hoosiers are an unacceptable record in collecting
child support and the need to radically expand childcare options for
families, including increased support for single-parents.
“It is organizations of volunteers, organizations of faith and
organizations of people animated not by profession, not by gain, but
simply by their love and commitment to our youngest and most vulnerable
who make the critical difference upon whom our success depends,”
Daniels said.
Even though most Americans and media reports have not held the First
Lady responsible for the mounting death toll of U.S. soldiers sent to
invade and occupy Iraq, Mrs. Bush’s visit to Indianapolis was not
without community member protest. About 10 Hoosiers stormed the
conference hall in the hope of asking the First Lady a few questions
about helping America’s youth beginning today, but they retreated to a
park across the street after they were turned away at the gates by
security.
“People are sitting in there talking about the youth of America but the
fact is Mrs. Bush’s husband is cutting money from groups that help
children so he can send mostly poor and impoverished youth off to fight
in Iraq because the military has unrestricted access to our schools,”
said Hoosier protester Kelly McGuire, who was holding a sign that read
“The World Can’t Wait: Stop Bush” in one hand and a bullhorn in the
other hand. “If we want to go to college and we can’t afford it, there
is no choice but to join the military. The only way to get to college
is to get a gun.”
Bush told the conference crowd that the current and future success of
young Americans is dependent upon adults, who must surround them with
positive influences and dedicate themselves to the needs and care of
young people in their communities. She said all adults, especially
parents, must teach young people healthy behaviors through their own
good examples.
“The challenges facing America’s young people are great. But like your
governor said, greater still, is our love for our young people, our
hope for our young people, and our dedication of millions of Americans
to helping young people succeed,” she said. “When adults believe in
children, children learn to believe in themselves.”