Dallas Jessup's Young Revolutionaries Who Rock
Profiles the Youth Activisit's Call to Action to Inspire Teens
Jun 1, 2009
Young heroes are leading a groundswell of teen activism the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1960s. A dozen kids on the front lines of community service are helping millions of people who are hungry, sick, bullied, abused, orphaned or otherwise in peril and they’re the principal characters the new non-fiction book Young Revolutionaries Who Rock: An Insider’s Guide to Saving the World One Revolution at a Time [Sutton Hart Press, March 2009].
The Beginning of Young Revolutionaries Who Rock
The idea for Young Revolutionaries Who Rock came from teenage author Dallas Jessup’s own experience; she grew a community service project into the non-profit "Just Yell Fire" which has helped more than one million girls aged 11 to 19 in 43 countries. “I thought the success of Just Yell Fire was unique, the result of a series of lucky breaks, but then I started meeting other kids with really high-impact projects.”
Teen Activists Who Inspire Change
Jessup met Vasanth Kuppuswamy, one of the young leaders featured in the book, when the two of them were inducted into the Hall of Fame for Caring Americans. As a North Carolina middle school student, Kuppuswamy started a project to help out the kids at a school in Tamil Nadu in rural India. The students had neither books nor desks but what really angered this young hero was that the teachers had given up; kids were schooled to become shepherds or servants.
Fast forward to now; Kuppuswamy is 19 and he’s spent each of the last six summers teaching at the school and delivering container loads of supplies he gathers from companies and individual donations during the school year. The school is thriving, teachers are inspired, and educators travel from across India to learn from the model Kuppuswamy helped create. A number of the school’s graduates have made it to college.
Chad Bullock, now 19, wants to keep kids from smoking; he took on and beat Big Tobacco. Jeremy Dias was bullied by both students and also teachers because he was different; he’s built a national program teaching tolerance in schools. Pat Pedraja set out to help build the national bone marrow registry when he was a cancer patient; he’s grown it geometrically. Pat’s now 13. These are just a few of the book’s revolutionaries.
Finding Your Cause
Throughout this process, the author gained the perspective that “Once engaged, teens have an amazing capacity to cause revolutionary change. Indeed, Jessup’s big discovery was the similarities of experience among these impactful teenagers and from these experiences she has drawn a blueprint for other youths to launch successful service projects. That is the theme of Young Revolutionaries Who Rock.
“All of us believe that teenagers are hardwired for activism” said Jessup, “But they want to be involved in something that resonates with them; it can’t be their mother’s charity.” Traveling 10,000 miles a month speaking to students around the country she tells them to decide what makes them angry. “Are they angry that so many kids in our country go to bed hungry or that many people can’t access the medical care they need because they don’t have insurance?...” This is how to find your cause.
The Next Great Generation
In profiling the young revolutionaries, this book lets teens know that anyone can make a worldwide impact and that age is no hindrance. There are also plenty of stories of film stars, elected officials, awards and cool trips involved for kids who work hard. Author Jessup was a Teen Choice Award nominee, met Peyton Manning, made a film with Josh Holloway, starred in a music video with two of People Magazine’s world’s sexiest men, and her experiences aren’t unique. Most of the featured teens have similarly cool stories.
Young Revolutionaries Who Rock inspires today’s teenagers to become the Next Great Generation with a groundbreaking call to youth activism from teens who have improved the world by helping many millions who need a hand. Every revolutionary said that while the television appearances and awards are fun; the big rewards comes from the thanks, the smiles and the restored lives of the people they help – one revolution at a time.
To find out more about Dallas Jessup's Youth Activism initiatives, and her experience writing this book, read this interview by Youth Development Feature Writer, Susan Carney.
