First lady speaks at IUPUI

INDIANAPOLIS -- First lady Laura Bush swung through the Hoosier heartland Tuesday to share her love and dedication to American young people, saying adults are the most instrumental agent of positive direction and change for millions of at-risk children across the country.\n"When adults offer young people a chance, their love and support can show struggling youth the hope that lies beyond their future, sometimes that hope makes all the difference," Bush told a gathering of about 150 Midwest community members during the Helping America's Youth first regional conference at the IUPUI campus near downtown Indianapolis. \nThe regional conference follows an Oct. 2005 White House Conference on Helping America's Youth held at Howard University in Washington D.C., at which more than 500 parents, civic leaders, faith-based and community service providers, foundations, educators, researchers and experts in child development convened to discuss modern challenges young people confront on a daily basis and to develop community strategies to better improve their safety, health and chances of a successful future. Bush said she has also traveled across the nation to visit schools, attend after-school programs and greet the mentors of young people at social service agencies like Big Brothers Big Sisters.\n"The work that each of you do in your communities helping young people build the knowledge and self-respect they need to live successful lives is at the very heart of the Helping America's Youth," Bush said. "While the discussions in our state and national capitals are important, the real work of helping America's youth is done in our communities through personal relationships formed in our streets, churches, schools and homes."\n73 million children under the age of 18 lived in America as of 2003 and that number is expected to increase to 80 million by 2020, according to the HAY initiative. About 32 out of 100 children younger than 18 do not live in a two-parent home, and about 12 million children live in poverty. \nPresident Bush proposed Helping America's Youth, a three-year initiative led by the First Lady, during his 2005 State of the Union Address. The president said HAY was aimed at showing American young men an ideal of manhood that respects women and rejects violence.\nBush said young Americans face unique modern challenges like drugs, gangs, internet predators, media violence and real-life violence, but that boys seem to suffer more than girls from negative influences because they are more likely to drop out of school, not attend college, abuse drugs, join gangs and engage in risky or violent behaviors, and they have higher levels of illiteracy. \n"As children face these greater dangers, they often have fewer people to turn to for help. More children are raised in single-parent families, most often without a father," Bush said. "Millions of children have one or both parents in prison. Many boys and girls spend more time alone or with their peers than they do with their families." \nMore than 500,000 American children live in foster care and about half of foster care children graduate from high school, according to the HAY initiative. About 42 out 100 children from single-mother homes live in poverty, and child abuse and neglect is reported for 11 out of every 1,000 American children between the ages of 12 and 15.\n"(Bush) brings with her a heart as big as Texas, a love of children that all Americans can see and sense and appreciate," said Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who helped introduce Mrs. Bush. "In Indiana, you are in a state that loves children, that knows the values of family and knows that, really, there is no calling more important than to help a child take those first essential steps in life. For all the love we feel for our kids we have a long way to go in this state and perhaps you feel the same way about yours."\nDaniels said the most basic task for humanity is to enhance the protection of individual personal safety. He said a few of the challenges facing Hoosiers are an unacceptable record in collecting child support and the need to radically expand childcare options for families, including increased support for single-parents.\n"It is organizations of volunteers, organizations of faith and organizations of people animated not by profession, not by gain, but simply by their love and commitment to our youngest and most vulnerable who make the critical difference upon whom our success depends," Daniels said. \nEven though most Americans and media reports have not held the First Lady responsible for the mounting death toll of U.S. soldiers sent to invade and occupy Iraq, Mrs. Bush's visit to Indianapolis was not without community member protest. About 10 Hoosiers stormed the conference hall in the hope of asking the First Lady a few questions about helping America's youth beginning today, but they retreated to a park across the street after they were turned away at the gates by security.\n"People are sitting in there talking about the youth of America but the fact is Mrs. Bush's husband is cutting money from groups that help children so he can send mostly poor and impoverished youth off to fight in Iraq because the military has unrestricted access to our schools," said Hoosier protester Kelly McGuire, who was holding a sign that read "The World Can't Wait: Stop Bush" in one hand and a bullhorn in the other hand. "If we want to go to college and we can't afford it, there is no choice but to join the military. The only way to get to college is to get a gun." \nBush told the conference crowd that the current and future success of young Americans is dependent upon adults, who must surround them with positive influences and dedicate themselves to the needs and care of young people in their communities. She said all adults, especially parents, must teach young people healthy behaviors through their own good examples.\n"The challenges facing America's young people are great. But like your governor said, greater still, is our love for our young people, our hope for our young people, and our dedication of millions of Americans to helping young people succeed," she said. "When adults believe in children, children learn to believe in themselves"