Smells Like Teen Spirit

By Jessica Rubi

Today's adolescents have been characterized as the most materialistic generation in history; a brand-oriented, consumer-involved group who derive self-worth from owning luxury handbags and the latest technology devices.

So said Lan Nguyen Chaplin of the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Business.

Most teens in the U.S. today lack basic vision for human worth. They could not care less about the victims of Hurricane Katrina or the death toll of Haitian and Chilean earthquakes.

They are interested in fads and celebrity mania.

If Kanye West and Miley Cyrus are singing about it, then it must be important.

Although those causes may be legitimate they only touch a small portion of the world.

There are needs in places that are less commercialized and that in some ways have been deemed incorrigible that go without attention.

Teens can make a huge difference. But they are targeted and held at bay by sensationalism enveloped with media-promoted fantasies and images.

Egregious celebrities such as Lady Gaga create outrageous images of contrived success based on the purchase of the next shocking and/or deadly fad item, sending American teens flocking en masse to buy them.

This appetite for unfulfilling sexual and explicit abuse has become so common that teen pregnancy is no longer an anomaly. Of 246,250 pregnancies in women between the ages of 15 and 19 in 2006, 72,290 ended as abortions.

Adolescence is that phase in which a child is changing into an adult: emotionally, physically, and mentally.

But in our culture adolescent development has become so arrested, warped and perverted that teens cannot mentally or emotionally take responsibility for their own lives, let alone respond to existing needs beyond the boundaries of their own minute world.

Narcissism and vanity have corrupted this new generation by destroying their awareness for reality.

If an entire American generation seeks self-worth in useless tangible accessories how can they fathom investing their wealth and knowledge in a person who is not a commodity but an actual soul?

As an American woman raised in the richness of Western society, I have been gorged with civil rights, liberties and opportunities from birth.

Nevertheless, with such great blessing comes an even greater responsibility. 

Responsibility weighs on this generation whether or not they are too self-involved to realize it.  The solution to social issues like teen pregnancy, teen suicide and teen violence is not for the government to throw more money away on the richest adolescent sector in the world.

Instead, there must be an awakening!

American teens must become conscious of the devastated global community of which they are an inherent part.

How can teen social issues decrease?

How can adolescents embrace a higher quality of life, while preparing themselves for their future?

Most importantly, teenage America, what is your responsibility?

How can you effectively impact a world suffering in overwhelming need?

Let me offer you an opportunity to make a difference.

Into-Africa, Inc. is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide particular cities, villages, and townships in West Africa with clean water, education, and churches.

Although much of Africa suffers from great lack, Into-Africa, Inc. understands that its purpose is broad but its focus is realistically aimed.

This article is not meant to provoke guilt for being American, or for having been born into opportunity and wealth. Instead, it is a beckoning effort to inspire in you a response to a needy continent.

Contributing to Into-Africa, Inc. is not only a way to help. It is also an opportunity for you to be part of something greater than yourself!

Please don’t waste your youth chasing lust-filled fantasies, but instead give of yourself to participate financially and physically in an organization that is changing lives, communities, nations, and eventually with God’s help, an entire people.

The average American teen has more money than a whole family in Sierra Leone.

You do not need to be a millionaire to be a philanthropist; you only need a burden.

Please partner with us to change the lives of West Africans, while we ourselves are changed by this great commission.