Education

Registration Deadline for STAR Interfaith Leadership Training is January 29th

Star Guides Neema, Dashell, and Sarah

STAR Interfaith Leadership Training raises youth to be leaders who are confident in their decision to remain sexually abstinent before marriage.

• Who should attend?
  Youth Workers, Mentors, College students, Middle & High School Youth and Parents

• When:
  Each Sunday from February 3, 2013 through April 14, 2013,
  From 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

• Where:
  The Emergence Community Arts Collective,
  733 Euclid St. NW , Washington, DC 20001

• Cost: Middle School students | High School students/Adults: $50 for the entire 10 wks
  Parents can attend for free with their child
  College students $10 for the entire 10 week program.
  Young Adults (non-students) $25 for the entire 10 week program.
  Complete 8 out of the 10 weeks to receive STAR Guide Certification.
  Make a Difference! STAR Guides help middle & high school youth make right choices.
  REGISTRATION DEADLINE January 29, 2013
  View Program Content

Learn While Serving

Register to be a STAR (Student Teaching Abstinence & Responsibility) and earn Community Service Hours while assiting with STAR Interfaith Leadership Training.
Apply here.
Online Training is on Thurday January 17 or Thursday January 24 from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

Short Story

Synclair

Synclair Maye-Key

The ceiling was coral blue. The kind with a spiky texture where you can’t bring in any balloons and let them go, more so the helium filled ones, because if they floated to the top and even thought about touching it, they would pop and slowly drift back to the ground. The television was on, playing something about cars, he was arguing with his mom, probably some random movie just to distract and ease the nerves. Something close to an I just got out of gym class kind of smell filled the room, where the attempt to mask it with deodorant and a quick sink shower made it just as bad. My feet were hurting and I was nervous, of what people, mostly my friends who I am pretty sure would lack the ability to remember my name after graduation, would think had they known where I was on a school day during class.  Anxious to leave, thinking about ditching, about how cool it would be to just not worry a bit, about anything logical nor rational, and realistically speaking, this was the worst place for anyone to be.  

Something told me to get out now and go home, but I was curiously premature in thought and action alike; a non-understanding or miscommunication between what I thought it should be like and what I was told. All of my friends were ready, so surely I had been too. I sat back on the bed staring at that ceiling imagining everything they said; that the pleasure of it all would be instant gratification for pain that would soon diminish. The door slammed behind him as he turned on his second-generation iPod classic. Something told me no as I raised the question of what if. What-if I wasn't ready and this was all a facade to lose something I cherished from infancy and my body was mine alone; a temple to explore and more importantly to understand and I wanted it perfect.  Gathering the courage I had so hoped to have I looked at him, attempting to tell the truth; that I wanted to wait, for me, but words never had a chance to escape.  So I let him take it without a word, and I for once in my life I made the biggest mistake that could never be taken back, only revisited with means of regret. I should have said no, because four years later, he doesn’t even remember my name let alone my innocence.  

Synclair Maye-Key is a Student at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She specializes in Film Editing, Storyboarding, final cut pro, script writing, assistant directing, and directing, in hopes of becoming a UCLA Graduate student fall 2013 and ultimately a world renowned screenwriter.  She loves the beach and her favorite color is green. She is also a 2009 graduate of School Without Walls in Washington, DC.

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