How Life Skills Empowers Young People

Posted: April 19, 2018

By Orayne Williams, former Overcoming Obstacles student pursuing his Master of Social Work at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service

I believe that the true effect homelessness has on the population it plagues is often misunderstood. Homelessness is not just the obvious idea of being without a physical home. It also encompasses other aspects, such as the breaking up of families, which silently dehumanize a person’s psyche. I know this is true because I once was homeless.

I never had the luxury of living a stable life. I moved from Jamaica to the United States, from shelter to shelter, and from school to school in New York City. Adapting to these different environments was difficult and caused me emotional distress. I remember washing my only pair of underwear every night and drying it on the radiator. And many of those nights were spent sleepless, dense with fear and choked with feelings of being unwanted and the unloved. In 2009, my mother and I were forced to move into a family shelter after the police raided the house we lived in due to other residents selling drugs. I remember riding the subway at 2:00 am. I sat across from my mother, who was holding my baby sister in her hands. I watched as they both slept. Tears carved my face as I, too, wanted to sleep but wondered who would protect us if I did.

After living in a family shelter for eight months and enduring much verbal and emotional abuse from my mother, she asked me to leave. It was two weeks before my 18^th birthday and I was homeless again, but now without any family support. I walked in the snow to the subway station, trying not to drag my bags on the ground. I called my mentor and learned that I could stay at the Covenant House drop-in center. I spent two months there and, even though it was not family, my things were not safe from being stolen, and it was overcrowded, I felt safe. And while it was difficult to prepare my college applications due to the lack of computer access, the staff worked diligently to help me. I felt supported and “believed in.”

During this time, I attended a male empowerment program called SIMBA, which is a program for high school males living in temporary housing. This was a safe space for me. It provided mentoring, college readiness and advocacy for the students involved. It helped me stay sane and cope with my homeless experience. And it taught me life skills.

Living in the shelter, I felt helpless and hopeless. I felt I had lost control of my life. But, then I one Saturday morning I participated in an Overcoming Obstacles Life Skills workshop. This was life changing! I learned how to organize my life—just the tool I needed to survive. Through activity-based lessons, the staff taught us not only the importance of being able to communicate, set goals, and make decisions but also how to apply those skills in our daily lives.

One of the activities I most appreciated required groups to work together and create a tall tower using a limited amount of tape and newspaper. At the end, we were asked to discuss the skills and techniques used to successfully create the towers. And then we talked about scenarios where each skill could be applied to a real-life situation.

We continued to learn life skills at SIMBA and I began applying them in my life. I was successfully completing homework on time, attending appointments, and fulfilling daily tasks. I noticed that as my life became organized, my mind became less crowded. I felt less overwhelmed and less depressed. Writing down my goals made them seem more achievable which felt like a load was lifted off of me. I developed a therapeutic practice of creating weekly to-do lists and keeping a journal. Between the two, I began to gain insights and see my progress. Having a to-do list and checking off tasks as I completed them helped to minimize my anxious thoughts. It also allowed me to see what I had accomplished. I felt mobile, as if my life was progressing.

My experiences as a homeless youth ignited within me the passion to become an advocate for at-risk children. I founded a nonprofit organization, Progressive People Movement, Inc. (“PPM”) to teach homeless and at-risk youth the Overcoming Obstacles life skills I learned when I was young and to help them navigate social services agencies, be a part of peer mentoring, and prepare them for college. I dream of expanding PPM into an organization that can effectively advocate for disenfranchised young people in the family and homeless shelter system. I dream of using PPM to empower overlooked, underserved and underrepresented youth throughout the nation and equip them with skills they need to overcome their daily life obstacles.