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Tundra Women's
Coalition
P.O. Box 2029
250 6th Avenue
Bethel, AK 99559
907-543-3444

  

Teens Acting Against Violence

Teens Acting Against Violence (TAAV) is a fun, energetic acting group based in Bethel, Alaska. Focused on peer education and outreach, TAAV's goal is to speak out, to engage our peers about issues that we feel are pertinent in our school and in our community.

How do you think violence affects you? 

This is some of what we heard:

"It affects different people in different ways. It affects people the way they want it to."
"It's all over the TV and news."
"If you grow up in a violent environment, it doesn't affect you as much. But if you don't grow up in a violent environment, it affects you more."

Violence is prevalent in the world today. Every school, city, town, and village is affected by not only images in the media, which are often targeted as the cause of the problem, but by the existence of violence in the daily life of each community.

"Everyone's violent, even if they're just playing."
"People feel they need to fight so they keep up their reputation, so they won't be called a chicken."
 "When people don't like you, you might get beat up. If you tell adults, you get beat up worse."
"If you win a fight, you don't have to worry. If you lose, you get teased."

Where do people learn that this is the way things are? Everyone has an opinion about violence. Some kids say fighting is fun. Others say that "fighting's not the answer to problems, it just causes more." But almost everyone thinks that it's an unavoidable part of life. Why is this the case? If people are the ones who are violent, then we have the power to stop the violence. 

We have the power to change our thinking, to change our behavior, to change the way things have always been. "People need to talk it out." People need to believe that there are alternatives to violence, that it is possible to change. Even those who claim they are unaffected by violence ("I don't know, I'm not a violent person") live within a community which struggles daily with this issue. No one is immune, and everyone has the responsibility to make a change.