January 19, 2025

PWA: An Agenda For Change

beyond the lens

A cool afternoon breeze passes through with gloomy faint gray skies lingering over the city of Detroit as young teens enter the Durfee Innovation Society building. It’s November 16th and Parents With An Agenda showcases the second installment of their safety series for November. Parents with An Agenda was created to strengthen parents and to have youth leaders by starting with the parents who are leading by example. Zsa Zsa Hubbard, co-founder of PWA  says “I kept seeing events happening during certain types of the year. And we want to provide a consistent resource that parents and their children can access year round.” Zsa Zsa is a mother of one son who is 21 years old. She created the organization through her original organization Kelly Kids Foundation which provides support to disadvantaged and low-income families that suffer from threatening illnesses.  After the passing of her mother in 2016  Zsa Zsa desired to make a change in her community to serve future generations better. From there with the help of her co-founder Lakisha Brown, a mother of two young sons as well, they have devoted their time to creating a safe space where families in their community can grow and expand as they grow and develop together through consistent events. Through this event, they hope to show parents that people care about them and their child's well-being.”Removing the red tape because there are a lot of resources for parents that are willing to help but they don't have a way of getting those resources nor do they have a way of knowing about it. So we bring in different facilitators from various organizations to let them know what's out there so that parents can get what they need for their family.” Lakisha says.



 As you enter the event you are invited by a long hallway with black and white stripes that swirl around the hall from the ceiling to the flow. Inside, loud movements of chairs rumble down the hall as Event Co-host Zsa Zsa and Lakisha come together to set up tables and snacks for guests. Lakisha walks over to connect her laptop to the event space sound system. A rush of musical rap beats floods into the air echoing off the walls of the room. Across the room, Zsa greets teens and parents as they enter the room welcoming them to sign in and usher them to open seating options. Giggles of familiarity can be heard echoing inside the room with heavy footsteps of teen boys rushing in to investigate what awaits them in the event. A warm welcome stirs the room as guests are greeted by the first speaker Chris Crabtree, a CDL / Driver training instructor with over 17 years of experience. Chris is devoted to challenging families in his community to better safety measures when driving. Overcome numerous obstacles while training his people in the community. “We have to go over the preventative safety guidelines before you can ever start teaching your child to drive.” “ When our youth are in family environments that don’t help to have open conversations about this, that is when unsafe situations happen to families” According to the National Library of Medicine studies show that teens between the ages of 16 and 17 have the highest crash rates and or injury to themselves or those around them. “We have to strengthen the parents first because it makes absolutely no sense to provide resources and support to young people and they go back home to a traumatic lifestyle. So if we can strengthen the parents, our work that we do with the youth won’t be obsolete,” says Zsa Zsa. 

The next subject of conversation is with Hubbard who covers cyberbullying. Technology is at an all-time high with many youths of this generation and studies show teens from ages 13-17 report 46% more cyberbullying than being bullied in person which is mainly rooted in name calling. This led to one parent asking “ How can we create safe spaces to keep communication open and monitor behavior without losing our child’s trust?” Hubbard recommends “When My son was a teenager I asked open-ended questions and never settled for a one-word response when he came home from school. I also keep it one hundred with him because I was his age once as well so we gotta stop talking to our kids like we never knew what it was like to be that age even though technology is new to many of us. Befriending his friends and their parents will help keep you in the know of who your child is surrounding themselves with.”Hubbard even shares that having a routine relationship with community members like neighbors, local grocery store staff, and even the gas station attendant could save you and your family's life. “Establish honorable relationships with people locally and stay active.” It’s time to switch gears as the event continues with teens being invited to participate in a bully scenario to protect a classmate from being bullied followed by a second scenario of one of them playing a parent deescalating their child being bullied by another child. The teens are given direction and tools to change the narrative in these scenarios to stay safe and avoid an unfortunate situation. After learning that they could be charged and sentenced to up to 2 years in jail for sharing and recording bullying incidents and not reporting it to law enforcement. With the shock of this news heads turn across the room and reality begins to set in for every guest. Chief Labrit Jackson closes out the event with a law enforcement scenario of two teens getting pulled over and talking to officers in a hostile tone versus a nonhostile tone. He highlights what questions they can ask when being pulled over and how to even protect themselves from community leaders who may take advantage of them. “ Our younger selves can teach us and save us from numerous setbacks based on the choices we make today,” Jackson says. Although there aren’t clear percentages on the death tolls of teens and law enforcement it is clear that there aren't any sweeping federal laws that regulate the use of force for teens 17 and younger. A concern that still impacts parents to this day. 15-year-old Zamiya Lejeune says “ My biggest takeaway from this event will be teaching herself how to lead by example” Another teen Kendal Studiuant was asked what some takeaways he will be implementing after today. At age 13 he states “ I’ve learned how to stand up for others when they are being bullied and I should tell an adult.” With that, the agenda has been set for Parents with an agenda. “ I hope we can restore our village and create the desire to empower parents to want to be a part of hope by creating generational networking and resources.”