PUT IT IN WRITING

At-Risk Juveniles Get a More Creative Look At Life

HOLLYWOOD - These are the kids with grandmothers in gangs. They are
the children of parents craving crack. Theirs' are the homes where
hookers turn tricks in the motel room next door.

But behind the mess, they find the words to write the rap and paint
the poems, that tell the stories of hardened lives turned to stone by
8 years old.

"I remember the time

When dad got busted...

When he gave you the food stamps and rent money

Before the one-times [police] took him away...

But when I came home to the motel after school

I couldn't believe it...

I know how it feels when you're addicted to something

But to leave your two kids like that...

Wondering if you were ever going to come back

How could you abandon us after all we've been through?

But I will tell you one thing

No matter what

I still love you"-- Michael, 13, of Culver City.

By age 11 Michael knew the going rate for a gram of crack. At 12 he
lived among drug dealers, prostitutes and gang members, while his
drug-addicted parents spiraled out of control. At 14, he was ordered
by the court to Camp David Miller in Malibu for juvenile offenders.

A year later, holding headphones to his ears, he records inspiring rap
music at a studio donated by Will Smith in South Central, laying down
lyrics about staying straight, going to Hollywood High School and
working at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum.

"We've got a lot to live for. ... I want to be a business man than a
thug slinging rocks [crack]," raps Michael and Keelan, 17, another boy
from Camp Miller.

Part of the driving force behind getting institutionalized at-risk
kids to put their feelings to paper through rap, poetry, short stories
and screenplays, is attributed to the Hollywood-based writing program
Create Now.

Founder Jill Gurr sends professionals in the entertainment industry,
like original "South Park" writer Andrew Borakove and rapper M.C.
Blvd., to juvenile institutionalized homes and camps in the Westside
to sell the concept that writing is a positive release for jaded
at-risk kids.

At 15, Marissa writes about dealing with anger and family problems
while living at Aviva Residential Treatment Center for abused and
at-risk girls, a mansion-like home hidden in the hills of Hollywood.

Tattooed on her left arm are three dots forming a triangle,
representing her former gang "Mi Vida Loca."

"It helps me to express my feelings in a positive way. I've learned
how to deal with my anger," said Marissa about the writing program
through Create Now.

Pamela scrawls her life on sheets of notebook paper and reads about
being strapped down almost every day at her third mental hospital by
age 16.

"I convinced the staff to leave the door open," she reads to other
girls at a Create Now writing class held at Aviva. "How I did it is
not appropriate for this story. Remember, I didn't care about myself."

They write to repent past mistakes and listen to the grief of other
girls who have walked in similarly tattered shoes before coming to
Aviva.

"Nothing is right or wrong. The message is to know some of the
experiences we've gone through," said Pamela, about the purpose of
preserving the girls' writings in a book compiled with the help of
screenwriter April Claytor. " I grew up in a troubled home and often
writing was an outlet for me," said Claytor, who donates one night per
week at Aviva, and has worked for Whitney Houston and HBO.

"It's about having other options. Kids think they only have so many
roads." For many kids, writing as a release is one of the few things
they do have. Someone like Claytor helps them expand their talent,
skills and gives them confidence.

"For some of these kids, their dad pimps them out for drugs and they
slang [deal drugs] for food. This is the reality that kids have to
live in. And not by choice," said Jain Irvine, deputy probation
officer and counselor at Camp Miller. "If anyone of us came from the
same place, we'd be exactly where they are."

But where they are and where they're going depend on how and if
they're helped, who is willing to teach them, and who is willing to
listen.

"I tell people stuff, and they don't listen," said Keelan. "I wrote my
first song at 10 or 11. It went like, 'my uncles beat me all around,'
about how I grew up."

But all 250 people were listening intently to every detail of his
message as Keelan and Michael rapped on stage about their goals and
their lives at a talent show organized by Create Now.

"No more hopping the gates leaving class. I want to have me something
in life," they rapped.

And for these kids, they've learned they'll always have one thing --
their words.