When I was seven or eight years old,

I was awaken at 5 am one morning to a loud bang.

That loud bang was federal agents kicking down my door,

looking for a family member of mine

who was a big-time drug dealer at the time.

He wasn't there. It was just me, my Mom and my sister.

I can still remember the fear, the confusion,

and the traumatic impact that that event had on me.

That event stole my sister's security.

I didn't feel safe in my own home.

They threatened to come to my school and take me away from my parents,

so I didn't feel safe there.

And lastly, it shaped my perception of police and law enforcement.

I now looked at them as the enemy.

Like in many other low-income communities, growing up in the city of Boston

you had more liquor stores than grocery stores,

more drug dealers than college graduates,

and more funerals than weddings.

Most will believe that behavior is learned,

and I can honestly say that was the case for me.

I became what I saw every day. I became a product of my environment.

If you were to walk through a low-income community

and take a poll and ask individuals, or even go inside prisons and ask them,

\"When your were younger, what did you want to grow up and be?\"

I could guarantee you almost none of them would say,

\"I wanted to grow up and be a gangbanger,\"

or \"a drug dealer,\" or \"a robber.\"

It used to be, \"I want to be a superhero,\"

or \"a police officer,\" or \"a firefighter.\"

So, when did that shift happen?

I believe the conditions of poverty helped create that shift.

Aristotle offers a quote and says,

\"Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.\"

And I believe that to be true.

Being a student in middle school in Boston public school system

was pretty rough.

The school looked more like a prison than a school.

We had forty students in one class.

We had one book for every three students.

I remember spending most of my times in the hallways,

running around, not engaged in any type of material.

And then, I remember being at my middle school graduation and thinking,

\"How did I even get here? I don't deserve this. I didn't work for it.\"

And at that moment, I realized,

\"They don't care about me. They're pushing me out.\"

So, as if matters couldn't get even worse,

it was in eighth grade when I lost my first friend to street violence.

Da-Keem Galloway, seventh grade,

shot in his head because he didn't want to give up his hat

to some of the local gangbangers in the neighborhood.

This happened just blocks away from my school.

So now, I wasn't being engaged, I didn't feel safe,

I didn't feel like anyone cared.

So I said, \"To hell with it.\"

That led me on to getting suspended, missing days of school,

and eventually getting introduced to the juvenile justice system

for truancy.

That apathetic attitude poured over into high school,

and I eventually got kicked out of three different high schools,

and written off by society.

And I remember I was on my last trial thinking,

\"How did they kick me out?

They're the ones that failed me.

They failed to provide a safe space.

They failed to provide caring adults to make me feel like a student,

and not a number,

and they failed to provide a childhood curriculum

to keep me engaged.

But yet, I'm the bad guy.\"

So, as a direct result of being disengaged for roughly two or three years,

I caught myself in a vicious cycle.

I turned to the streets.

I felt like I had no other option at the time.

I didn't consider myself a criminal. I considered myself a survivor.

In that two-year period, I couldn't find a job,

so I started selling drugs, got arrested,

started getting into fights, getting jumped,

watching my friends get gunned down in the streets,

and I myself came face to face with death on three different occasions.

I was \"knee-deep in the game\".

Within one day, there was a huge sweep in Brockton.

They arrested over twenty individuals for drugs in the city.

They were all my friends, and I thought, \"Shon, you're next.\"

On that very same day, I turned the corner of my street,

and there was a police cruiser right in front of my house with their lights on.

When I saw that, I immediately went back to being eight years old

and remembering those federal agents kicking down my door.

It was then that I said to myself, \"This is not about you anymore.

This is about your family.\"

I couldn't put my sister and my mother through that again.

So, at that point, I said, \"You've got to make a change.\"

So, I went on to look for a second chance.

It wasn't easy.

I found my second chance at an organization called YouthBuild.

YouthBuild is a comprehensive program

for youth who have dropped out of high school and are unemployed.

And while they're in the program,

they spend half of their time working towards their GED or high school diploma,

and the other half getting marketable job skills,

for their low-income homes, for low-income families.

There are social and emotional components of the model,

and also chances to develop leadership skills,

which has helped lead me to this stage today,

to represent thousands and thousands of YouthBuild students

and local communities across the US,

and now in fifteen countries across the globe.

When the education system failed me, when the job market failed me,

when the justice system failed me,

YouthBuild was there to welcome me with open arms.

I first heard about the program from a cousin of mine who graduated.

My initial intentions on the program were to join the program, get my GED,

pick up a certificate and a trade, and be on my way.

But boy, their staff did have plans for me.

They said, \"Lashon, we respect your decision,

but why don't you give college a shot?

Don't say it's not for you, unless you give it a shot.

Hey, we'll pay for it, we'll bring you to the class, you know.

If it doesn't work, what's the loss to you?\"

So I took them up on their offer.

So immediately after completing the program,

I enrolled in the Bridge program,

which was a partnership between my local YouthBuild program,

and the local community college,

and that was my first college class, and I passed it with an A.

Receiving that grade motivated me to want to go on

immediately in full time in the next semester. And so, I did so.

And I kept up the pace,

and eventually, ended up completing my associates in criminal justice,

with high honors,

and ducked in to three honor societies,

and made Dean's list every single semester.

(Applause)

Thank you.

Now, this picture is significant to me

because this is me and my father at my graduation.

Now, this would be the last time I'd see my father

because he was murdered three weeks after that.

That was one of the most trying and darkest times of my life.

I wanted to give up on everything, education, you name it. I wasn't for it.

Even though I was two years out of the program,

the YouthBuld staff was still there for me.

They served as my counselors,

they came to my house unannounced to make sure I was OK.

And lastly and most importantly,

they reminded me that the last thing my father would want

was for me to give up my education.

So, I internalized that and kept up the pace,

and this May, I just completed my bachelor's at UMass Boston.

And now, I am on my way to Northeastern University

for my master's in nonprofit management.

(Applause)

Now, while I appreciate all the accomplishments

every time I come to DC or go to any other city

and I go back to my community, it's a smack in the face.

My people are still under struggle.

There are over 6.7 million opportunity youth who are unemployed

and have no education.

In addition, there are over 2.3 million individuals in our prison systems.

What if they had a second chance?

Would the world be a better place?

My answer is yes, and it's not too late.

But we all have to work collectively to help change their conditions

and help provide more opportunity for the millions of youth in America.

So the question is, how? How can we do that?

I have three solutions for you.

My first solution is, instead of making decisions for them,

give youth and members of the community a voice.

They're the experts, they're the ones living in these situations.

A perfect example would be the National Council of Young Leaders,

Opportunity Youth United,

in which I represent youth for USA.

We've put together a set of recommendations to increase opportunity

and decrease poverty in America.

Some of our priorities are to increase comprehensive programs like YouthBuild,

and reform the criminal justice system, and many more.

But again, these recommendations were all produced

by former opportunity youth themselves.

Secondly, instead of investing more in jails and in building more jails,

let's invest in more YouthBuild programs,

so that every youth who wants a second chance

can have the opportunity and take seize of it,

where they could earn their high school diploma and GED

with a relevant curriculum and opportunity for service learning;

where they can gain job training and become community assets,

instead of liabilities;

where they have access to caring adults to help them work through life challenges

and build the resilience to transform their lives;

where they can engage in community service

for communities that they may have damaged before,

but now they can then go back and build a connection.

And lastly, give them leadership skills

and the tools to take responsibility and advocate for change

in their community, in their lives, in this nation, and in the world.

Lastly, let's look at some of the policies

that are preventing these men and women from reaching their full potentials,

such as the regulations around criminal records

and the school discipline policies,

so that we can have less of these,

and more of these.

Now, that is a simple formula,

and I believe that that formula will change lives and open many doors.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was my story.

I thank you for listening.

(Applause)