The original plan cited youth-risk survey data from the late 1990s. That data has aged — but the underlying problem hasn't gone away. Here's where things stand now.
Set up an interactive web site that gives kids tools and knowledge to better confront their association with guns, drugs, gangs, abuse, and pregnancy — giving them unique access to problem solving and goal setting, using artistic skills as a basis for understanding their own predicament.
Provide learning opportunities through internet involvement that help kids:
Make available an age-appropriate interface between the existing social service network and the generations that need it most.
Implement an aggressive campaign to spread information on effective strategies to combat juvenile dysfunction — including regional directories for youth to access information, services, and skills in productive fields like space exploration, high-tech jobs, programming, and research.
Ensure access to immediate, local assistance in an anonymous and safe environment, including monitored online discussions, one-on-one help, and service locations in their own neighborhoods.
Develop a body of pertinent information drawing on children's content and contributions from universities, government services, books, television, cable, and news publications.
The Youtopia journey began with a single provocative image: a kid in a bottle — unable to deliver or receive any information, untainted by the dynamics of alcoholism in the family, not being heard, distortion and denial and confusion seeded into everyday activities, learning to co-depend. These patterns of dependency and blame start early.
The first step in taking the distortion away is to help kids see themselves in pictures — what it looks like in other families dealing with the same issue — so they can match it up against, and validate, their own experience. Then, perhaps, to share those experiences themselves, by writing or drawing, drawing satisfaction from self-motivation.
The content of Youtopia is designed to hand kids the tools and resources to familiarize themselves with the issues they face in their lives — all the situations where they find themselves "in it," one way or another. It helps them understand that they're responsible only for their own behavior.
The "inits" grew naturally from there, covering the good avenues for choice as well as the bad and the ugly:
| Kid in... | Represents | Kid... | Represents |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Bottle | Alcohol | On a Mission | Dreams / Goals |
| A Corner | Divorce | Wiz Kids | Thinkers / Tech Tinkers |
| A Barrel | Guns / Gangs | Phys Kids | Physically Challenged |
| A Closet | Sexual ID / STDs | Biz Kids | Market Minded |
| A Box | Suicide | Eco Kids | Resource Aware |
| A Fix | Hard Drugs | In a Crystal | Global Thinkers |
| A Chimney | Smoking | In a Cup | Philosophers |
| Trouble | Acting Out | On a Quest | Taking New Directions |
| On the Way | Pregnancy | On a Limb | Risk Takers |
| A Mirror | Bulimia / Anorexia | On the Go | Travelers / Runaways |
The brave new world needs brave new tools to produce courageous, intelligent adults. Through the "inits" and everything built around them, kids learn that you are the source of your own utopia.
Provide a curriculum and reference database — a clearinghouse of content drawn from:
Kidsinit/Youtopia is an estuary — a place to explore, discover, create, understand friends, understand how children grow, and view the local environment. The interactive site gives users the tools and knowledge to better meet the problems ahead, developing the skills and self-understanding to help them courageously face the new world.
These pages are preserved as originally written, from Youtopia's first business plan.