Above: Jenna Lee (Larrakia artist, Gilimbaa)
Positive Choices Storytelling Competition
Jayden (14 years), NSW
The reasons I like the place I live in
Hi my name is Jayden I’m 14 in year 8 I live in a small town called Griffith. The reasons I like the place where I live is because they are lots of programs. The programs I do are boxing with youth workers it’s a little program just to keep kids from any years to stare fit and healthy. I also do Clontarf it a school program to help kid in years 7 to 12 to go to school and get jobs. I also do midnight basketball it’s for kid from age 12 to 18 it goes for 8 weeks and it’s on Friday nights. It starts at 7:30 till 12:30. I also went to a camp for Aboriginal kid from the age of 12 to 16 it is called Tirkandi Innaburra its 45km away from Griffith it goes for 1 term it’s to teach kid about Aboriginal culture and life living skills. It’s a nice little town you can see the country side not many crimes happen here compare to the cities. The people around here are good friendly people and they don’t act prefect because they know no one is prefect. There not many good shops around here but you don’t need lots you only need a couple my favourite is GB a sport shop and it’s only in Griffith. Also the school are small that’s good because they not many people to worried about.
The reasons I don’t drink or smoke
The reasons I don’t drink or smoke is because both can cause heaps of different cancers. The smokes has now have over 7,000 chemicals like tar carbon dioxide and arson from rat poison it can cause gangrene lung cancer and tumours that can make you very sick or can cause death. 1 out of 5 Aboriginals die by smoking. People use smoke to release stress and to look cool. The AMS [Aboriginal medical service] smoking team goes around to programs and camps to teach kids before they start doing it. Smoking and drinking can make your brain send messengers to the other parts of your body slower so you can’t see properly and stand up or walk properly. It also hurt yourself or others around you like family and even if you didn’t mean it or want it to do it.