This is an awareness and empowerment program that is designed to open the eyes of youth that glorify the gangster lifestyle without really having a clue of how messed up it really is. It is important for everyone to know that various organized gangs are actively recruiting youth in most communities today in their ongoing drive for new members. These gang wannabes will become a new source of revenue for the gangs by pushing drugs in the community, luring community females into prostitution, and a wide array of property related crimes including an increase in break and enters and other thefts committed by community members to help support their drug addictions. The gangs are very active in trafficking narcotics including heroin, cocaine, crystal methamphetamines and hallucinogens. Youth attending this very impacting workshop will hear the hard cold facts about gang life and come to recognize that Native gangs victimize their own people and their own communities. Many of today’s youth are glorifying Ghetto life - selling drugs, pimping girls, running around calling each other “my niggaz”, calling females sluts, hos and bitches, disrespecting their Elders, their parents, their teachers, vandalizing their communities, defacing the buildings in their communities with gang tags such as Eastside, Westside, Deuce, 2pac, IP (Indian Posse), NS (Native Syndicate), Bloods, Crips, Thug Life, and other forms of gang territory tagging. Look around your own community for evidence of gangster wannabes tagging their turf. Take a tour through any major city in Canada and see how many young Native girls are working the streets as prostitutes and then look for their spotters, acting like they’re Mac-daddies and big city pimps. Young Native males prostituting young Native girls - it’s a very sad and disturbing situation. Why is it happening? Because far too many of the younger generation are being drawn into a lifestyle that is endorsed and encouraged by the music they listen to and the videos they watch, where it’s all about how much gold is hanging around your neck, how many “Ho’s” are working the streets for you, how much dope you’re slingin’ and how much “bling bling” you’ve got. Too many of our youth have lost their identities; they are not proud young Native males or proud young Native women anymore. Our young men are no longer the proud young warriors that protected the women and the community; now they’re acting like they’re back alley ghetto “niggaz” slingin’ dope, stealin’ dealin’ and wheelin’, pimpin’ Ho’s, smokin’ blunts, sucking back 26’ers and 40 pounders of alcohol and creating havoc and mayhem in their communities; acting like they’re as tough as hard core in the Hood gangsters and talking as Black as a homey living in South Central LA.

This very straight-forward workshop is an impacting wake-up call to our youth before they get drawn even further into the gang subculture. This is, at times, a real 'in-their-face' approach to the hard core facts; this is not a workshop for children. This is a brutal look at the reality of gangs, violence, street life and prisons, not the “kiddy jail” where these youth start out but the penitentiary they are definitely headed for if they don’t start to turn their life around.

This workshop is similar to the highly successful Scared Straight program the Young Warriors Network has been presenting for many years - a program that has positively and permanently changed the lives of many young people. If you have a problem with straight-up reality and with someone telling the youth in your community the truth about behavior choices and consequences, then this workshop is not for you. However, if you do want to help your youth see reality before it’s too late and they’re in too deep and can't escape the gang then this workshop is definitely for your community.

Lee Mason is an internationally renowned facilitator and an addictions recovery specialist. He is also a graduate from the school of hard knocks; he brings his knowledge, his expertise and his true-life experiences to your community youth. Lee is a highly respected man who wins the immediate attention of youth, adults, and professionals alike; he tells it like it really is and his straightforwardness and honesty are admired and respected by youth and adults.

This five-day workshop is not about candy-coating reality; it is at times very hard-core and filled with brutal honesty. It is designed to cut through all the myth and misinformation and reveal the true facts, ending the self destructive and self defeating behaviors in which so many of our youth are becoming trapped.

In addition, the workshop focuses on raising self-esteem, developing pride and placing emphasis on the need for youth to become the masters of their future.

Call or email us for workshop details and how to bring this program to your community.