Teens With a PURPOSE: Helping Youth Find Their Voice

Non-profit uses peer mentorship, artistic performance, and honesty to
connect with struggling youth.

Article and Interview By Jason Liebler
Photography By Brian M. Freer

Seventeen-year-old Chinyere Onyrimba and brother Emeka, 16, are Norfolk high school students involved with the youth organization Teens With A Purpose. They attended the October 22 silent auction and gala to benefit TWP.

Deirdre Love, in an elegant black dress, stands for a photograph in the VIP lounge of the Waterside Marriott. Beside her is NBC’s Today Show weatherman Al Roker, who, after the camera flash, waves for the photographer to join them in the next picture.

WAVY-10 news anchors Don Roberts and Kerri Furey shake hands with fellow attendees, which included Mrs. Virginia International Rebecca Crosen, Virginia Beach school board member Patrick Salyer and Norfolk Parks and Recreation Director Darrell Crittendon.

It’s Friday, Oct. 22. These and other esteemed guests came together to support Teens With A Purpose (TWP), a Norfolk-based youth movement, at the organization’s inaugural silent auction and gala. The event recognized young men and women who have faced adversity in their lives and are moving forward.

Love, TWP’s founder and executive director, started the organization in 1996 when her church, The Basilica of St. Mary of The Immaculate Conception in Norfolk, was awarded a grant from the Virginia Department of Health for an AIDS ministry. Already an active member of the church, Love saw an opportunity to make a difference. She volunteered to coordinate the youth piece.

The idea is simple: have young men and women go to the community to talk to their peers about the

struggles and fears facing teenagers today. Topics like sexually transmitted diseases, domestic violence, and racism—spoken by young people to young people. In the past year, the organization has served more than 4,000 young men and women in Hampton Roads through workshops and events.

“The idea behind it was to make it peer-led,” saysvLove. “I would direct them, but everything they did, it wouldn’t be adults talking down to kids. It would be youth-trained; they give the information to their peers, they put a youthful spin on it.”

This “youthful spin” has taken the form of music, poetry and drama. These performances are what Love calls “a vehicle to change lives.” Peer educators take the facts and statistics and translate them into poetry, spoken word, drama and music.

Chinyere Onyrimba, a peer educator with TWP, speaks about her training: “We’ll all get together and [the expert] will come in and speak about the certain STDs that are prevalent. She’ll tell us the statistics on dating abuse, and all the things that are affecting the generation now. We’re able to take the information we’re given and give it to those who are willing to listen to it.”

Chinyere , 17, and her brother, Emeka, 16, both attend high school in Norfolk. “We’re able to talk to people who are our ages and younger and let them know what’s going on in the community,” Chinyere says. “How to protect themselves, how to do these things to make them themselves better.”

Emeka, an avid writer, says his experiences with TWP have helped him build confidence since joining the organization three years ago. “Seeing myself now I’ve grown as a person,” he says. “I’ve gotten into my poetry, my art, my love, and I see myself doing a lot more with TWP and making it into a big organization.”

For Love, and peer educators like Emeka and Chinyere, the medium is just as important as the message.

“There are [other] organizations that approach these issues in different ways,” says Love, “and they are essential to the change we are trying to see come about, but the missing piece is what we’re doing— [getting] young people talking to young people in a way that no adult could possibly do because we can’t stand eye-to-eye with them. We’ve given them younger people who have gone through what they’ve gone through so they can see there’s a way out.”

In 2007, the grant funding the ministry ended, but Love refused to give up. She established a partnership with Access AIDS Care and Norfolk Parks and Recreation, and TWP soon officially became a non-profit.

Her phone conversations with long-time friend Al Roker sparked his interest in TWP. Roker asked how he could help.

“He’s very committed to helping us,” says Love. “It’s amazing—his voice, his presence, his believing in it—because he has watched us grow over these few years. He’s impressed with what we’ve done in a short amount of time and he’s encouraging to the youth. They all talk to him because he calls and checks in and meets with them every year.”

Through the support of Roker and others, Teens With A Purpose continues to grow. Love plans to start satellites in other cities like Richmond and Atlanta. But with any non-profit, community support remains the greatest need. Interested parties, both individuals and organizations, can sign up to volunteer or make donations on the TWP website, www.twpthemovement.org.