My name is Ambra Redrick, and I am a Mom and a nonprofit leader of an organization called Teen Hype in Detroit. Education was something that was not talked about in my household. I was sent to a neighborhood school, and on the very first day, I remember walking into the school and feeling unsafe, and because I felt unsafe, I made this conscious decision to stay outside the walls of the school, and so that put me in the hands and arms of people who didn't have my best interests at heart. Eventually this downward spiral would lead to me meeting a guy who sold drugs and one day I went to visit him in a crack house. While I was waiting on him to get back, another guy walks past and asks me, what am I doing here… you don't belong, and I could have left, but I made the choice not to leave and that night in the bathroom of that crack house, I was sexually assaulted and I never said a word. More horrific than the act was the idea that I thought that that's what happens to kids like me, who’s parents can't take care of… so I do this work so that no other young person has to live this story, and 14 years later we've met wonderful outcomes and are serving thousands of kids throughout the city of Detroit and so I like to believe that the work we do has changed so many young people's lives. 

My big dream is that I would love to see young people valued as key stakeholders in our city… That we get to this place where we don't make decisions about young people - without young people at the table… that we value them enough to uplift their voice in every way possible.