It's midnight and I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about the big changes in the last few years, about how my life has turned so radically. I have been thinking about all of the brave youth who were representing their realities at the conference, speaking their truths. And then it hit me:

Community Arts saved my life.

I know that sounds completely cliche, but it's true. While I come from an amazing caring and supportive family, I have always been a so-called "At-Risk Youth" since High School. I did drugs, was suicidal, dropped out of school at age 16, and fought with my parents and friends. I was a rebel without a cause, and always liked to pick the craziest guys to date.

Alternative education saved my life, and within that I fully credit the radical pedagogies of Paulo Friere, Bell Hooks, and other activist educators. I went back to school and got to study what I wanted, when I wanted. I could bring my creativity into all of my classes, making school something I actually looked forward to. My teachers were my peers, and we were a community of learners where everyone's knowledge was respected equally. Then I found activism, which gave me a voice and an infinite number of causes to devote my energy to. Through activism I learned what youth engagement really meant, and with my peers we organized dozens of events which were for youth and by youth, always creatively driven.

My activism has taken me around the world, from doing the Rural Development Program in Mexico and Alberta, to Costa Rica where I just finished my Netcorps internship. The thing that just struck me, that woke me up and drew me to my keyboard, was that if it wasn't for these experiences I just might not be here today. Literally, the two times mentioned above when I went away the apartment where I was living was home invaded. I thank G-d that I was able to leave that environment, and that I am here to tell the story today.

A healthy combination of arts based activism and education is what I have to thank for my existence. With out the amazing presence of community arts in my life, I don't know where I would be, or if I would be alive. My evidence that youth engagement through creative arts programming functions exists is in my every breath.