![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cadca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/cosept5.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe East Baltimore Drug-Free Community Coalition has done, and continues to do, a number of projects with youth including workshops, listening sessions, sporting events, town hall meetings, branding activities and joint youth learning activities,\u201d said the coalition\u2019s Project Director Reverend Richard A. Henderson<\/strong>. \u201cOur prevention coordinator and I met and talked about how we can work with youth on creating a message that could spread on social media, as well as getting the attention of other youth in Baltimore. These young people are not just dealing with substance misuse in their community, but they are also seeing other things in the community, such as violence and crime, causing them to become traumatized from what they see. Part of the goal of the \u2018We Ain\u2019t Blight We Bloom\u2019 project was for youth who participated in this song to bring awareness to other youth, showing them that\u00a0no matter what blight they experienced in the community, they could bloom by doing positive and meaningful things and encouraging other youth to do the same. We understood the peer to peer concept of youth being able to reach other youth. The Baltimore City Health Department was very instrumental in some of the support needed to complete this project.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference that this project makes is\u00a0allowing youth to be creative in developing messaging,\u201d said Henderson. \u201cThe coalition has always taken and used this approach to empower youth to\u00a0be the creators of messages that would focus on the issues that they deal with and come up with solutions that would make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs the coalition has shared what the youth created with coalition members and other partners, we continue to hear that this will make a big impact and difference in the community,\u201d said Henderson. \u201cOne thing that we know is that youth are always looking for something new, and here in Baltimore the youth that we work with are very talented and creative in bringing forth change through what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs the coalition is involved in other projects for the new school year, the plan is to share \u2018We Ain\u2019t Blight We Bloom\u2019 with some of the other youth that we serve by providing workshops and listening sessions in schools, recreation centers, and through our other youth partners,\u201d said Henderson.<\/p>\n \u201cThe East Baltimore Drug-Free Community Coalition advises other coalitions to allow your youth to be as creative as possible,\u201d said Henderson. \u201cWe have found that when our youth are challenged with creating positive youth messages, it takes their creative minds to an entirely different level where they have become the real change agents in the community where they live. Allow your youth to bloom in everything positive that they do.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe East Baltimore Drug-Free Community Coalition has done, and continues to do, a number of projects with youth including workshops,<\/p>","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":13529,"template":"","resource_type":[281],"drug_specific_issues":[],"action_to_do":[],"class_list":["post-17245","resource","type-resource","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","resource_type-coalitions-online"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n