VALPARAISO | Sometimes the greatest insight into the future comes from those who stand to live it.
Teens from across Northwest Indiana gathered Saturday to offer glimpses into how images of poverty have shaped their outlooks on life during the first Teen Poverty Forum.
J. Allen Johnson, president of the Institute of Culture and Environmental Understanding, one of the groups that sponsored the forum, said that according to a recent report from the Northwest Indiana Quality of Life Council more than one in 10 residents in the region is living below the poverty level. What's more, he said is that the percentage of children living in poverty is far greater.
"Poverty is an issue for Northwest Indiana," Allen said. "Our purpose is really to hear the voices of those who have the greatest stake in this and whose voices are seldom heard."
One of those voices is from Neil Kondamuri, a junior at Munster High School. After floodwaters ravaged his community, Kondamuri volunteered his time to help. While assisting an elderly woman by carrying recovery supplies and temporary assistance to her car, Kondamuri said he saw firsthand what not being able to make ends meet can do to a person.
"She started crying on my shoulder," Kondamuri said. "She was so sad to lose her home and everything she had."
Jackie Meredith, a minister at Merrillville's True Worship Christian Center and president of MereImage, an organization that provides community outreach, said as a single parent of a daughter who's now 25 years old, she can remember tough times herself. She said the sight of her daughter always helped her keep focused on her goals and rising above her situation.
"Poverty has no gender, no age. Poverty has no limits," Meredith said.
Xochiti Logan, a junior at Merrillville High, said growing up with a single mother and two sisters, there were times when sacrifices had to be made, but because they stayed together as a family, they came out stronger.
"Just because you're not rich doesn't make you less of a person," Logan said.
Meredith said hearing the teenage voices provides not only insight, but inspiration that conditions will improve with future generations.
"These kids are our future," she said. "It's up to us to start now, to create the mold for what our future holds for all of us."
