Joycelyn Elders Quotes

Youth Ministry, as traditionally organized, has also suffered the impact of social changes. Young people often fail to find responses to their concerns, needs, problems and hurts in the usual structures. As adults, we find it hard to listen patiently to them, to appreciate their concerns, demands, and to speak to them in a language they can understand.

Most organizations see young people as problems to be solved. We see young people as problem-solvers.

Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society's margins, all of us will be impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to participate fully in the lives of their societies.

I've always been a youth advocate. I mean, that's been my brand, reaching out to young people. All my life, when I've dealt with youth I'd be thinking back to my own experience. Now I look at my kids and think forward.

I was invited to a luncheon with 49 other women to give my opinions about the problematic situation among young people. They wanted me to talk about why is there so much juvenile delinquency in the streets of America.

It's our responsibility for the village to say, 'Hey we're going to create these programs,' whether it's sports, creative arts, music, we need some things to give young people positive things to do, and that's including jobs.

Real, sustainable community change requires the initiative and engagement of community members.

By bringing the voices of the ordinary people faced with extraordinary challenges to television screens around the world, I hope to affect change in one community at a time.

I tend to focus on young people and on giving a voice to groups of people who don't normally get their voices heard.

We have to let young people know that we care about them and their future. I want to involve them to a level where they become the leaders and the advocates because, right now, a lot of these young people don't believe they have an advocate.

You know there's problems - you can see all the poverty and so on - but it's quite another matter to know what you can do about it.

Ninety-five percent of my work is being mayor. But that 5% that nags at all of us - of what's going wrong in this country - I think is best thought out not in your own head but by getting out there, being out there, and listening to Americans.

Young people are going to go to someone, somewhere. And we had better see that that 'someone' is us.

Young people ought not to be idle, it is very bad for them.

We have to invest in our kids, we have to invest in our communities, we have to create jobs. We have to make certain that kids are not dropping out of school and hanging out on street corners.

People don't see hunger in front of them so they are not directly affected. What I am doing is connecting young people to the issue

As organizations, we have to find ways to create more opportunities, especially for our young people. A lot of corporations, they have to make opportunities for young people - create internships, for example, even if it's only half-time.

Reaching out to any fellow ghetto kids is an act he puts in the same category as doing drugs: the initial rush of warmth and euphoria puts you on a path to ruin.

The music business would be much better, for the youth and the kids, if they start hiring employees that understand the kids.

It's always nice to share your energy with young people, the people who might not have any skills but are simply willing to be a part of it.

I'll have 15 letters today from mostly young kids who don't like what's going on and want to do something about it, and [they ask me] if I can give them some advice as to what they should do, or can I tell them what to read or something.

We need young people to be involved, and we have to expect that young people are going to be impatient, they don't want to wait, and they've got new ideas and new ways of looking at problems.

I'm lucky enough to have a kid with me who is actually really intellectually up with what's going on in the world and actually puts his money where his mouth is and goes and does something about it; he goes and talks about it. It livens you up a bit and it brings you into the 21st Century.

Especially being around young people, ... It helps put things in the proper perspective as you return back to the chaos of politics.

Young people are going to go to someone, somewhere. And we had better see that that 'someone' is us when the opportunity is ours, for there will come a time when we will wish they would come, and do we know but that the interruption we now impatiently put off may be the most important thing we could be doing at this particular time?