NAVIGATING: Make Them Hear You: Navigating A Rapidly Changing World With Guidance from Youth Musician and 2SLGBTQIA+ Leader

By Valerie HD Killebrew

Last week, I shared with you a bit about my friend and creative co-conspirator, Luke Chacko, and their inspiring story using music to address the challenges faced by many young people today, especially 2SLGBTQIA+ youth.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time chatting with Luke. We talked about their new music, school, life and how young people were navigating such rapidly changing times.

Find Your Art

Along with ANXIETY, which was included in my last post, Luke mentioned another important original song they composed that they felt responds to what’s going on for young people today, titled Fun:

“The lyrics go ‘I don’t get no fun’ and it’s about when I was working an almost 40 hour a week job, feeling like I didn’t have any opportunity to just be a kid and have fun.” 

They went on to share that they feel so many young people are being forced to grow up too quickly: manage school, tests, jobs, extracurricular experiences, appointments, and family. They ask if the incentive for school is to go to college; where and when does fun come in? What about the amazing youth who don’t want to go to college? Where is the incentive for choosing another path?

School was not always the place where Luke felt safe or able to be seen, let alone lead. They shared, 

“At my previous school, I remember, it was more accepted by a lot of the guys to accept girls who were bisexual. The bigger issue for them was people like me. I never came out at that school. I am almost 100 percent sure I would have been driven to suicide. I really had to say, ‘I don't want to be here. I don't feel safe. I can’t be myself.’ I couldn’t say much at that school without being told, ‘You have a high voice, you must be gay’ or ‘you walk a certain way, you must be gay.’ It hurt for the longest time. That's when I was really trying to learn and understand who I am. I remember some teachers and students would tell me,’“Oh, you're young. You don’t really know.’ To me that sidetracks the conversation. It’s saying, you can be that … for now. It was inconsiderate, and it was not validating what I was saying. It made school unsafe and made me suicidal. I remember having awful mental health issues. I'm still trying to learn and cope with it, but had I stayed there, I don't think I would be here today.” 

Luke has since been accepted to Arlington High School and is currently the President of the Fashion Club. “Fashion is another way that I can feel myself and communicate who I am.” Luke shared, “I really want to use my role in the club to create leadership roles for other youth and focus on monthly themes for our work, like Black History Month, and give people the opportunity to also incorporate what we do at school with what’s going on outside, in the world.” They continued on to talk about expressing themselves through music and fashion is really about creating spaces to feel good about themselves and use their art for good. 

When we were wrapping up our conversation, I asked Luke what message they wanted to share with others about navigating what’s happening and moving forward:

“I am here to change the norm.” They explain, “The norm is ridiculous. Whatever I do should be a reference for what the future can be. We need to use art for good, so I say to people to find your art, find what helps you feel good about who you are and what you want to share with others. Find a creative outlet- find the ways you can get your anxiety and sadness out in healthy ways. There will be some sadness that you can’t change, sometimes you do have to move through it, but you can feel so proud that you did it for yourself.”

Creating Real Space for Youth

Feeling inspired by our conversation, I started to reflect on meaningful ways we, as adults, can create more space for young people like Luke. How do we provide space for fun, real fun? What about space to explore different creative ways to express who you are and what you believe? 

 I settled on the following questions that I will leave for your own reflection:

  • Where are the spaces where you hear the needs and interests of young people?

  • How often do you make time to listen?

  • What can you do with what you hear?

  • What is one step you can take today to create space for youth voices to be heard and share the voice of a young person who is finding their own way through these rapidly changing times?

Check out some of these great resources around cultivating and bolstering youth leadership:

  • UNICEF: ENGAGED AND HEARD! Guidelines on Adolescent Participation and Civic Engagement - These guidelines have been developed to enhance systematic programming and advocacy to realize adolescents’ right to be heard in matters affecting them. The guidelines provide information on the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how-to’ of participation and civic engagement, with a specific focus on adolescents.

  • Building a Culture of Participation: Involving children and young people in policy, service planning, delivery and evaluation - This handbook draws on the findings of a research study that explored the experiences of 29 organizations in seeking to listen to young people and to take action on what they said. The research points to this being most likely to succeed where organizations had worked to sustain and embed their participation activity. This Handbook and the accompanying research report Building a Culture of Participation both aim to stimulate thinking and to provide useful ideas about how to actively involve children and young people within services and policy making.

  • A Collection of Youth Leadership Resources - Links to helpful resources related to supporting different elements of youth leadership and youth-adult partnerships.

  • Centering Creative Youth in Community Development: Field Scan- Throughout 2020, a group of young creative people, their adult allies, and a team of researchers sought to answer the question, "What impact do creative youth have on communities?" Combining knowledge from a 15-person advisory committee, the extant literature in the fields of community development and youth development, and deep-dives into nine selected projects as case stories – each comprised of interviews, narratives, and artistic works – the resulting field scan presents three sets of findings: community benefits articulated in the words of young creatives, strategies for partnering to expand the reach of youth-led creative placemaking projects, and new ways of defining success.