[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 101 (Friday, July 24, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1426-E1428]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            STATEMENT FROM SOME VERMONT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 24, 1998

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have printed in the Record 
this statement by a high school student from my home state of Vermont, 
who was speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young 
people today. I insert this statement in the Congressional Record as I 
believe that the views of this young person will benefit my colleagues:

 Statement by Erik Kenyon, Megan Willey, Kelly Cook and Justin Sturges 
                    Regarding Gay-Straight Alliance

       Erik Kenyon: Thank you.
       United Nations here from the Bellows Free Academy Gay-
     Straight Alliance. You have already heard about gay-straight 
     alliances, so we are just going to tell you a bit today about 
     the way our school works.
       Like most places in Vermont, St. Albans--over that way--is 
     fairly isolated. For the first two years of high school, I 
     just didn't date anyone. It was something I had no real urge 
     to do. I never thought, well, maybe I'm gay, because the word 
     never came up at all, until I went off to the Vermont Youth 
     Orchestra--which is really cool--I have to get a plug in 
     here; we have a concert tomorrow by the way--which is where I 
     met my first gay person, and that United Nations. ``That 
     makes sense. Why didn't I think of that?'' This is how 
     isolated St. Albans really is. And St. Albans is actually a 
     big progressive for the State of Vermont, if that tells you 
     anything.
       And so, at the beginning of the year, some students got 
     together, and we wanted to start something, and the gay-
     straight alliance is what we decided on, and here is Justin 
     to tell you about that.
       Justin Sturges: When we began, it was a new thing, you 
     know, no one had even thought about GSAs, and so we were met 
     with a certain degree of resistance. There is a story that 
     goes along with this. When we first went into our 
     headmaster's office, there were three of us, Erik, myself and 
     another guy, who couldn't be here. He asked us, Well, how 
     many of you people are there? And that, right there, set the 
     mood. He has gotten better, and I think that we are the 
     reason, to an extent. It was this sense of newness, this 
     sense of an unchartered area that no one had been to yet, and 
     we broke that.
       And we have been met with certain degree of resistance from 
     several people, from people in the school, from outside 
     influences, from adults, from the teachers.
       Here is Kelly. Kelly is going to talk about an experience 
     of her's.
       Kelly Cook: Hi.
       Yeah. I joined GSA about three weeks ago, I think. One 
     time, I was walking up to a coffee house which we put on 
     quite often. And a

[[Page E1427]]

     lot of people don't accept different people, like they call 
     me a freak at my school. I'm like: Okay, whatever. I am just 
     walking out with a whole bunch of people and suddenly these 
     people come by with a truck and throw stones at me. That is 
     the kind of stuff you have to get rid of.
       And a lot of people just don't accept gay, bi, or different 
     people at all, and I will hand it over to Erik.
       Erik Kenyon: But we have been making success this year, and 
     when we were starting out, there were some people all for us 
     and supportive, and some people that were really against us. 
     But most of the people were just sort of indifferent, and we 
     won over most of them. And we have been working on the rest 
     of them.
       And a lot of the time this sort of change--well, the bills 
     and all the policies help a great deal, but a lot of the 
     times, it is that little things. Like an experience I had 
     just last week, just in the cafeteria, and just bringing my 
     tray up and dumping my garbage and all that, and behind me I 
     could hear a chant of, ``Queer, queer, queer,'' getting 
     louder and louder. It started as a stage whisper, which is 
     hard with microphones. But it was just--it is kind of 
     commonplace.
       So I just did my thing, put all my stuff away, and then 
     walked over to the table where it was coming from--it was 
     quite obvious--and just stood there and stared at them. And 
     they were just like: Hi. What? They got really uncomfortable, 
     you know.
       So I didn't say a thing, just walked away out in the hall, 
     did something or other. And I was really surprised, the boy 
     at the table that was doing it, came that and apologized to 
     me. He said, you know: ``I'm sorry, I didn't mean it,'' and 
     all that. And I was like: Okay, thanks. And he said, ``No, 
     really, I'm sorry. I was just trying to show off. It was 
     stupid.'' And he shook my hand. That was just, like: Oh, wow. 
     That was change, and this is how a lot of these changes 
     happen.
       And a lot of other things have come up through the course 
     of the day, about things that people would like to get put 
     into place. And we can speak for some of those, like the 
     harassment policy, which doesn't get exercised enough. It 
     doesn't get exercised, because it is really difficult to 
     exercise, but through our group, we had have had, I think 
     three people so far who have gone through the process and 
     done the paperwork to file the complaint, and the 
     harassment has stopped.
       We also put on a number of coffee houses, just to read 
     poetry and stuff. It is a nice, relaxed atmosphere. It was 
     odd at the first one, we had 100 people, out of a student 
     body of 1,000, so you get that kind of one in ten, ten 
     percent, and that was kind of neat.
       We also have a Web page, put together for the GSA in the 
     state, to try to help us network. It is a start, but we could 
     use a lot more.
       And, Justin?
       Justin Sturges: What we see needs to happen--we are 
     obviously here for a purpose--we see, for the advancement of 
     such things as we have been doing, we find it necessary for 
     teachers to be trained. That is the one thing that has been 
     left out. You know, we have done what we can for the student 
     population, and will continue to try to educate them, to get 
     them to be more open to our organization and anyone who is 
     different from what they may see.
       We find it necessary for the teachers to be trained, 
     because they are the source, to an extent, because they are 
     there in the classroom with all the students, because they 
     come into contact with every student in that school. And, 
     sometimes, they let things slip that, perhaps, they 
     shouldn't.
       Outright Vermont, right here in Burlington, does do a 
     program, and we have talked to them about it, but there were 
     restrictions in our school because of the amount of 
     assemblies we have had and the amount of inservice time that 
     we have had, and we couldn't get anything off the ground. But 
     support for that is the one thing we are rallying for 
     currently, the one thing we see that needs to happen.
       Congressman Sanders: Thank you very much
                                  ____


            Statement by Christie Nold regarding Child Labor

       Christie Nold: My name is Christie Nold. I am an eighth 
     grade student at Shelburne Community School.
       For the past several weeks, I have been researching the 
     topic of child labor in the U.S. and throughout the world. 
     This is a brief summary of my findings.
       The problem: Around the world, there are 250 million 
     underaged children in the work force. There are nearly 
     300,000 underaged workers in the United States. Working 
     conditions include: Wages as low as $1.50 per day; sexual 
     abuse; physical punishment; exposure to dangerous chemicals; 
     and children chained to their machines.
       Companies that utilize child labor include: GAP, Nike, J.C. 
     Penny, Esprit, Disney and many others. For example, workers 
     are paid 6 cents to produce a 101 Dalmations outfit that is 
     sold in the U.S. for $20.
       Progress in the fight against child labor: As awareness of 
     this problem that has grown, there has been progress in the 
     fight to end child labor. My research has uncovered that our 
     own congressman, Congressman Sanders, has been the leading 
     spokesman in the U.S. Congress against child labor, and 
     specifically against Nike. His efforts are producing results. 
     As recently as Tuesday May 12, Phillip Knight, the CEO of 
     Nike, announced the following changes in his companies 
     practices: They will raise the minimum age of its workers to 
     16 at its clothing factor, and 18 at its shoe factories; they 
     will adopt U.S. standards or fresh air inside their 
     factories; they will ask individual foundations and rights 
     groups to monitor Nike plants worldwide; they will begin 
     having on-site education programs at their factories.
       Congratulations, Congressman Sanders. Your efforts are 
     paying off.
       There is still much work to be done, as the ultimate goal 
     is to bring jobs back to the U.S. and pay American workers a 
     living wage. The Foul Ball Campaign is another area where 
     progress has been made. For years, the vast majority of 
     soccer balls were made and stitched in Pakistan using child 
     labor. FIFA, the governing body of soccer, has determined 
     that it will not put its stamps on soccer balls made by child 
     labor.
       The Rugmark campaign has also made progress. Hand-made 
     oriental rugs are commonly made by children who are chained 
     to their machines and guarded by men with guns. The Rugmark 
     label was created in 1997 to indicate rugs that were made 
     without child labor. Now, when you purchase an Oriental rug, 
     you can look for this label.
       In conclusion, child labor continues to be one of the worst 
     social and economical problems in the world today. The goal 
     of our generation is to help eliminate this problem by: 
     Becoming aware of companies that utilize child labor and take 
     our business elsewhere; let the leaders of these companies 
     know that we have a lot of consumer power, and will not 
     purchase their products; support those who are leading the 
     fight against child labor.
       Thank you.
       Congressman Sanders: That was an excellently written and 
     presented paper. That was really good.
                                  ____


  statement by Amanda Bean, Rebecca West, Noel Baker, Jessica Dailey, 
Sarah McDonough, Nikki Erno, Louise Martinek, Stacey Zak, Jody Jernigan 
       and Celina Coglan Regarding Teen Pregnancy/Welfare Reform

       Jessica Dailey. Jessica.
       I would like to speak about teens and the resources that we 
     seem to be lacking. We found that there are very few 
     resources for teens either who are pregnant, or who aren't 
     but need help. There is the Lund Family Center, which is 
     pretty much the only one of its kind in the area. And we need 
     more help. There is really nowhere for us to go.
       There is also a problem with people who aren't pregnant. 
     They have no really good teen pregnancy prevention programs 
     out there for people at high risk, and we feel there needs to 
     be put more of an emphasis on prevention and giving education 
     for that.
       Congressman Sanders. Other thoughts? We would like to hear 
     from as many folks as possible. Please don't be shy. Who 
     else? Just pass the mike along.
       Jessica Dailey. Nikki wanted me to say something for her.
       Congressman Sanders. Sure.
       Jessica Dailey. Also, the program called Spectrum for 
     people who have had children who are in SRS custody who are 
     over the age of 16. However, there are no programs like that 
     for people under 16, and a lot of people are falling through 
     the cracks. There needs to be programs out there for people 
     who are under 16 who are in SRS custody towed.
       Amanda Bean. I know I am in SRS custody, and I have a 
     daughter. I am not 16, and therefore I can't go into the 
     Spectrum program because of that fact, and I have been living 
     at the Lund Family Center for a very long time. And there are 
     no programs for me except Lund, which, to me, feels like I am 
     staying there a long time, when other girls could be coming 
     into my spot, which could be helping them, when I have 
     already been helped, but, yet, I am not old enough to go into 
     that program that they have.
       Noel Baker. I think that the schools really need to support 
     our decision. In my case, school told me to get my GED or my 
     adult diploma, and I am not old enough to do that. And I 
     really wanted to get my education and everything, and Lund is 
     the only resource out there that I could go to get my 
     schooling and to parent my son. I really do think that the 
     support of school would really help us right now.
       Jody Jernigan. My name is Jody, and I'm 14. And I just 
     wanted to say, make the point really clear that there is not 
     much out there for teens, and pregnant teens. Lund has been 
     really helpful, but we need more out there. We need things 
     for teens to do so they are not getting pregnant, and also 
     things for teens to do that are pregnant or that do have 
     children, because there is nothing out there.
       Louise Martinek. I just wanted to say that I think day 
     cares need to be given more money. Day care workers are like 
     making nothing and our day care has no money to do anything.
       Jessica Dailey. About day care, I am unable to have my 
     child in the day care center at Lund because there aren't 
     enough spots open. It was unreal trying to find a day care 
     that would take subsidy. And even when they did, I am still 
     having to pay extra, and it is very, very difficult. And a 
     lot of the day cares that will accept full subsidy, workers 
     are being paid so low that you are not really getting quality 
     with your child care.
       I think that something needs to be done about that, 
     because, I mean, it is pretty bad when you walk into a day 
     care and you have a bunch of kids, hardly any day care 
     workers, and they are not paying attention to

[[Page E1428]]

     them. I have run into them a couple of times.
       Congressman Sanders. Other comments?
       Amanda Bean. I was wondering about longer hours of day 
     care, like not longer days, but being open longer. Most day 
     cares are 5:00 or 6:00, and what about people who work until 
     9:00 or 10:00 at night and have to pay someone extra, and 
     weekend day cares. I work on the weekends, and I have to pay 
     somebody unreal amounts of money to babysit my kid, and there 
     goes most of my money.
       Congressman Sanders. The issue that we are talking about 
     obviously is a very personal and difficult issue. I very much 
     applaud you all for coming up, and I thank you for doing 
     that.

     

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