I'm one of these people who pays a flat rate to get unlimited long-distance in the USA plus reasonable rates in various other countries. This really works out great for my "adopted" kid brother and computer guru (Mark) and me, because we're able to stay on the phone together while troubleshooting my computer along with doing other online activities that I'm not yet able to do on my own.
Take our online store (that is, the Cafepress store associated with Invisible Youth), for instance...
Without sounding as if I'm bragging, I took care of the appearance of the storefront on my own, and I think that I did a great job of it! But, when it comes to doing Adobe Photoshop, I'm still quite wet-behind-the-ears. Therefore, I will tell Mark what kind of graphic I'm trying to design, and he will set out to design it: tweaking it until it, at the very least, matches up with the vision in my head but, usually, turns out even better!
But Russell and I got to the place where we were talking several times a week and, usually, at great length--until he told me that this had to stop. He reminded me--as well as himself, I think--that he really hated telephones.
Furthermore, he really didn't have a lot of time for "chit-chat."
If this sounds cold and heartless to you, let me quickly disabuse you of this notion.
Russell is neither cold nor heartless--not by ANY stretch of the imagination.
He simply has a very good reason to budget his time--and that has to do with an overdue dream of his: building an organization that will be truly effective in dealing with the issue of teens and children becoming invisible in a society that has the means (if they would only apply them) of giving these young people the visibility and empowerment that they so richly deserve AND have a RIGHT to!!!
Russell not only has sympathy for these kids but, also, empathy, because, at the tender age of nine, he became one of them.
Even before then, his home life hadn't been ideal by a long shot.
His mother was his dad's second wife--a woman who had never been fully accepted by her in-laws (who had doted on the first wife) with this attitude of nonacceptance trickling down to Russell.
This, along with other factors, caused tension in the home--a tension to which Russell's mom responded with shrill tirades. When the noise and tension got too much for Russell, he would run away. He knew that he would, eventually, have to return (especially, when several people in town--including the chief of police--knew him and would make sure that he got back home again), but he would, at least, have a few hours of peace and quiet.
One day, he returned home from school to find an empty area where the family's mobile home had been. A tri-state search would turn up no signs of his parents and Toy (the comical, little Boston Terrier who had been his most trusted companion--even saving his life one time when a fire started in his bedroom from a tube radio!).
There's a part in the movie, Home Alone, that always makes me cry. For those of you who haven't watched it, I won't provide the spoiler except to say that there was an old man in Kevin's neighborhood of whom he'd always been afraid.
During the days of Kevin's ending up the man of the house, he got to know the old man and realized that he wasn't such a bad guy after all. In fact, this neighbor had a very painful situation going on in his life, and Kevin ended up helping him to resolve it.
The part that really gets to me is when Kevin is looking out the window and observing his neighbor's newfound happiness while having a conversation with his mother. The tone of the conversation shows that Kevin didn't even realize what a special thing he'd done--not that he didn't realize that he'd done something good but seeming to have the attitude that it was just what anyone should do (something in the same category as doing his chores and/or homework on time or brushing his teeth).
I've now realized that there are going to be two places in this movie that will get to me bigtime--with the second place being at the first when Kevin wakes up to an empty house after his family accidentally leaves him behind when they take off for Europe.
They hadn't gone to bed on the best of terms the night before--so, now, Kevin has the idea that the reason that they're gone is that he must have wished them away.
Kevin's way of coping with this discovery isn't to dwell on the past--something that couldn't be changed--but, instead, to figure out how to survive in his present circumstances.
Russell responded in much the same way when he came home to nothing--likely, feeling deep inside as if he had something to do with this since there had been so many times that he had run away.
What he did right after the discovery shows this to be so...
He went to his best friend's house and just hung out as usual while not mentioning a single thing about what he'd just discovered.
After a time, his friend's mother asked him if he wanted to stay for supper, and he said that he did.
It wasn't until she told him that she'd call his mother to check and see if this would be okay that Russell told her that she wouldn't be able to do this, because nobody was there anymore.
She thought surely that Russell had to have been mistaken, because things like this just didn't happen. She loaded him and her son into the family car to drive over there and show Russell that he must have simply gotten on the wrong street--that everything was still there.
To her shock, she found out that this wasn't so--and called her husband (the police chief) at work. He didn't believe it, either, until he had seen it with his own eyes.
Russell stayed with his friend's family until a few days later when he became a ward of the state of Florida.
I believe that the following article does an excellent job of telling what happened after that...
The Invisible Youth
by
Dana Lefey Maeve
Chief Executive Officer
Invisible Youth Network
by
Dana Lefey Maeve
Chief Executive Officer
Invisible Youth Network
I reviewed our clearinghouse outreach site “The Invisible Youth” recently and discovered that Russell, Founder and Creator of The Invisible Youth, in his infinite wisdom, has created a place of help for youths to find answers. Why?
He was a homeless youth, abandoned by his parents, and the system punished him for his ‘crime’. He then became the very criminal they formed and deprived him into being. In the forty-four years that he was incarcerated, he discovered why he survived the cruel irony of his childhood. He survived to stop homeless youths from becoming the ‘feeder’ for the all too profitable business of the prison systems.
Ninety percent of those placed in our Juvenile Justice Systems come from the Child Protection Systems. Ninety percent of those juveniles become the adults who populate our Criminal Justice Systems in prisons. Child Protection Services and Child Welfare obviously are not protecting our children. And though they are a large part of that inefficiency, so are we as a community. No matter what our excuses are, we take no notice of a child that is being abused. We don’t want to get involved or if we decide to make that call, we are not taken seriously, or worse; the child is placed into the system and there they stay.
They are institutionalized and abused by the system. No love or compassion are they offered. Nor do they ask for it. Instead they learn that there is no power in being a child. Some never make it out of the hell we put them through. Some only make it to the larger, more overwhelming criminal element of prison.
I have to ask myself and now ask you; how difficult is it to take compassion on a homeless or abused child and offer them a meal, a kind word, a warm and safe place to sleep? Or offer a listening ear and an empathic response to their cry for help? How difficult is it to offer their single parent a break for the night or a chance to rest between work and raising their family? How can we turn away and pretend they just do not exist?
How can we allow our neighbors and friends to starve and go without heat in the winter, when we know they are laid off or are out of work and have no resources to take care of their family? How can we do not one damn thing, when we listen to a man verbally and physically abuse his wife, night after night, and not offer her and her children a safe haven or give her help when she asks? How can we look at ourselves in the mirror or sleep at night when we know that we are abusing these people, these children, just as much as the system and the abuser, by not taking any action or speaking out to stop it from happening?
What is it going to take to feel their pain, to release them from shame and total despair before we help them? What if it were you and your family? Don’t tell me it will never happen to you, for it can and will.
Open your heart and feel the beat of their empty drum. Wake up and see with your eyes. Listen to their spirit as it screams into the night, instead of turning your ears deaf to their agony. Look into their soul and offer a hand up and give help to those who need us most. Love them unconditionally. They are your brothers, your sisters, your siblings, your children, your parents. Give them Hope!
Russell along with the volunteers at “The Invisible Youth” are giving them hope one child, one youth at a time. He sees himself in their eyes and lives. These invisible youths can become whole again and be adults that have goals and interests and dreams. And maybe even families of their own that they teach and raise with unconditional love.
Sentencing them for the ‘CRIME’ of being abused, homeless and alone is why they become the very thing you and I teach them to be and then judge them with fear as something to be despised in the same closed hearts that created them. Put an end to our contempt and abuse for our own creations. Help them while they still have a chance.
They are the Invisible Youth.
Author's Note: The Invisible Youth is an international outreach program for the homeless youths in our country, the USA. We are a clearing house of information, mentoring program and so much more for the sole purpose of helping the Children of our Future.
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In short, Russell's dream is to save the young people who are currently falling through the cracks from going through what he went through--and worse--and it frustrates him that things aren't already in place, even while being encouraged by the progress that we've already made.
Our lengthy telephone conversations--which no longer take place several times a week but, instead, one or two times on average--still have a lot of length to them, considering that Russell hates telephones. However, even the length of them has been considerably reduced--or, at least, that's the original plan at the beginning of each call.
So, I hope you're curious about what a man and a woman talk about to each other late at night--and I hope that you aren't disappointed that a lot of our conversations focus on building this dream as quickly as possible.
In just a matter of a few months, Invisible Youth Network has gone from being a dream tossed around by two people living hundreds of miles apart communicating by computer and phone while sharing their dream with a handful of friends and other associates to a growing organization that is starting to be recognized on a larger scale.
Chapter Two
Doing At Least Something While Waiting/Wanting To Be Able To Do More
Doing At Least Something While Waiting/Wanting To Be Able To Do More
