If you had $1,000,000, what would you do to make life better for teens or prevent teen pregnancy? This is a central question asked of teens in DC Campaign's Teen Town Hall meetings.

Teens are the experts on their own lives - what really happens, what works, what's in and what's out.  When it comes to making life better for adolescents, DC Campaign needs their expertise.

Teen Town Hall meetings give young people opportunities to share their opinions, their priorities, and their visions for the community. Meetings are facilitated by skilled Youth Leadership Task Force members (called Teen2Teen Town Hall Meetings) or DC Campaign staff members.

If you are interested in participating in or hosting a teen town hall meeting read this Teen Town Hall information (31.67 Kb).

Since 1999, 57 teen town hall meetings have been held with more than 9 91ethnically diverse teens throughout DC. This includes a very successful partnership with the DC Department of Recreation and Parks to host meetings in each ward. Below is what some teens participants had to say:

Teens from Asian American LEAD discuss how they would make life better.

• One of the reasons I think that kids don’t—just don't really know about—aren’t well educated about sex and such—is that they do look to celebrities or their peers, the media or something and they don't look—they don't trust the adults in their lives for one reason or another. Like their parents aren't very good—easy to talk to or they don't trust their teachers. But I think that just a lot of kids don’t trust adults.
• A lot of teenagers know where to go to get an abortion, but they don't know where to get condoms cheaply.
• Get down to our level and figure out what we're going through and really make the programs geared toward us and not toward an unrealistic view of what we are going through.
• When you're young, it's embarrassing to talk to your parents about [sex] because you don't feel right talking about yourself. —16 year-old boy
  
• Sex education is taught in the hallways of some schools rather than in the classroom. —17 year-old boy
• If you can't handle the responsibilities, don't do it. —16 year-old girl
  Some girls lie about birth control. —17 year-old boy
• Why guys get to have a bunch of sex, and is it right? The bottom line is on the street, having sex is what defines being a man. So when we have sex with one we'll have sex with another and another and another. —18 year-old boy