Current location:	IP
Current mood:	determined

Let's Make This Something Better, Stronger, Something Worth Fighting For
After mourning the loss of YRUU as I know it, I am honestly both a little scared for what this means for Unitarian Universalist youth and excited for the opportunity it brings. However, I have hope that there is a way to make something BETTER than YRUU. Something with less flaws. Something with less institutional classism/racism. Something that speaks to our youth today and will continue to speak to generations of youth following.

I want to figure out where we went wrong, what made YRUU so unbearable, which aspects worked and which didn't, and I want to find a way to make the UUA believe in youth enough to trust them with its future.

I want to see youth on the Board of Trustees at their churches. I want to see youth on the Religious Education/Exploration Committees. I want to see youth volunteer their time to soup kitchens and Habitat for Humanity and to help their own churches fundraise to support their own programs and events.

As someone who was very active (perhaps over-involved) in YRUU for seven years (1994-2001), someone who was forever affected and influenced by those experiences, I do not want to see our youth being pushed aside when they need a safe and challenging place to find themselves. However, the youth have to take initiative. They have to want it. They have to do the work. They have to support themselves. And they have to get other people to help them.

Let us be those youth and their allies.