[nfb-talk] Youth Empowerment

[Alan Wheeler]

You know?  That makes a sadly ironic point.  The one tool that connects the 
world has caused a form of detachment (meaning the internet).

I reckon our youth are wondering, "Why go testify at an appropriations 
hearing when you can (so to speak) phone it in (via e-mail, etc.)?"

You also make a very valid point about those of us old enough to have more 
time commitments than we have time.  I also wonder if, to borrow a popular 
political term, we need to re-energize our base.

Just some more random thoughts.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Youth Empowerment


> Lest we be accused of being the pot that called the kettle black (and I
> know Judy did not do this), if we are honest with ourselves, we will
> realize that, at least in this neck of the woods, it's getting
> increasingly difficult to turn out droves of blind persons for
> legislative hearings and such, no matter how important they may be. WE
> who are older have incurred many obligations which we cannot or are
> unwilling to get out of for last-minute NFB tasks and the young have
> their MP3 players, the Internet and the like which they judge to be far
> more interesting than having to sit thru some boring appropriations
> hearing or even a hearing on something about which they care if the NFB
> testimony is about eighth in or worse of the bills being considered. For
> what it is worth, I don't think *any* of us, given the Internet and all
> the information coming at us, feel the sense of community, comeraderie
> and being in the same foxhole with brothers and sisters that we did
> when, say, we were fighting for the various White Cane Laws, the right
> of blind persons to serve on juries or, to make things local to my
> state, struggling to break the School for the Blind out of the welfare
> department.
>
> So aside from the truism that we must make friends with the young and
> show some interest in what they're doing, we face the task of making
> activism fun again and showing the young that they have a real stake in
> the future -- not an easy task when, for the first time, young people ma
> end up with a lesser standard of living than we have.
>
> Mike
>
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2006, Judy Jones wrote:
>
>> Very well put.  Who ever heard of Disabled Student Services when we went
>> through school in the sixties and seventies?
>>
>> Judy
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Ryan O." <rosentowski at neb.rr.com>
>> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 9:40 AM
>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Youth Empowerment
>>
>>
>>> The blindness world is still rife with youth. The problem is that 
>>> they've
>>> had a good deal handed to them through legislation, technology and
>>> monetary
>>> advantage that wasn't available to previous generations.
>>>
>>>
>>> RyanO
>>>
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>>>
>>
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