It all starts with the kids’ stories: Sammy’s biological mom, a crack addict, gave him up when he was 10 months old. He later ended up selling drugs to help his adoptive family avoid eviction, again. Sofia’s parents were deported, and the Division of Children and Family Services shuttled her through nine different high schools. Charlotte’s father is wanted by authorities in three countries. Her stepdad abused her, and she hasn’t seen her little brother in months.
Teenagers falling through the cracks of state systems designed to protect them—foster care, schools, shelters, juvenile justice—have all faced heartbreaks, and there’s no shortage of adults telling them how to fix their problems. But one Atlanta nonprofit has found that the best way to help these kids is to listen to their stories.
The Orange Duffel Bag Initiative offers a sort of life coaching for “at risk” teens like the group alums above.* Each 12-week session begins with a daylong retreat, culminating in an exercise where kids select images from a pile of photographs and explain why those pictures symbolize their lives. Sammy chose an astronaut floating off into space; Sofia chose a baby’s hand being held by an adult.
Most Orange Duffel Bag participants sign up to earn the free laptops distributed at the end. But if you ask a graduate what turned out to be most meaningful about the program, they almost universally tell you: “Finding out other people have it worse than me, that I am not alone.”
[For more of this story, written by Betsey Riley, go to http://www.atlantamagazine.com...ffel-bag-initiative/]
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