Daxter, my dog. I grew up very lonesome in the big city of New York. I always struggled with understanding why everyone wants to come here when it can be so grim. New York City has so many families struggling to simply survive. The rents are high, and from a very young age, we are exposed to money issues. It's a city full of millions of people, both wealthy and poor, but I always felt so incredibly alone. I found myself struggling with depression as a pre-teen into my early teens but only 1 thing in this entire city helped me. On April 9th, 2013 my dad came home with a puppy. I now had a reason to wake up, a reason to go home, and a reason to want to see another day. The most precious thing in my life has always been mijo. My mom thought it was hilarious that I had started to call him that, it means "my son" in Spanish, but I truly love so so much and to this day he is my rock. The majority of people in my life do not know that I struggle with depression but I know for a fact that if Daxter had never been in my life, I would be much worse. With him, I don't feel so alone. I am the happiest with mijo, Daxter.

Fighting against stigmas is a never-ending assignment that needs to be encouraged more often in everyone's day to day conversations. It is important for me to spread awareness about substance abusers to those around me even if it might be just a few words of wisdom. I believe that if we as a community can stop viewing addiction as a choice then we can get the population the assistance they need. It will also make assistance for this population more accessible. Communities will see this population as one that is clearly in desperate need of assistance. I think its important to have conversations that spread knowledge about addiction and how it has actually takes over a persons life. I believe that this can help spread a positive outcome throughout the United States, a country that can be very bitter and degrading to this population.

Addiction is caused by disconnection but no one wants to connect with an addict. One of the biggest issues in the world is that those who struggle from addiction are so stigmatized that it is almost impossible to get people to want to help them. I live in New York City where recently two supervised injection sites have opened in Manhattan. This is going to potentially save the lives of many people who would most likely die from an overdose. While this is an incredible step forward for substance abusers, I have seen nothing but negative reactions to this occurring. It is still typical for people to push the idea that someone struggling with addiction is at fault for their addiction and that they choose to continue doing it even though it has, most likely, caused nothing but negative impacts in their life. It is important that young people are presented with the correct information about substances and why someone might potentially become hooked. By humanizing a substance user, it allows people to empathize with them which can lead to more funding in the correct areas to allow them to receive help. The problem is that people are just not presented with a space where they can learn this information unless they take a special elective at school or if they magically run across a good article or YouTube video on the topic. Every substance user has a story, people just refuse to take the time to hear where this all stemmed. Encouraging young people to understand substance users can make receiving help a simpler task in the future. That's why I believe these conversations should be happening in high school. Teaching this information can make a world of a difference for future generations.

I believe that education would improve for future generations if the focus was shifted more on the students learning rather than just their grades. I think that it's important to find ways that we can help people learn new information rather than have them momentarily memorize it until the exam. Whether it's changing teaching styles or providing new after-school programs that can provide a different form of teaching that is unlike that of the classroom. If asked, I am sure students can agree that they forgot the information after the exam, essentially, emptying their thoughts on the subject to make room for the next topic for the next exam. All they know is they got a 90 or a 65 and that's that. I do not think this is right at all. It is essential that all the years in school are being used to successfully absorb knowledge. It is important that students are taking in information in ways that will allow them to carry it with them, for years to come. Whether it's Mathematics or U.S. History, we should be ensuring that the students are taking in the correct information and actually learning something new; rather than just memorizing some numbers or names then, further down the line, not knowing any of it anymore or where it ties back to. This applies to all grades including college-level education as well. Professors will have students bubble in a couple of answer sheets and recall a couple of PowerPoint slides and then send us on our way; Then, four years later, hand us a degree but nothing to truly show for it. All the good grades does not directly indicate that the student successfully understood the material and will be able to recall the information in the future. All the focus is on receiving an 'A' and passing, that's it. Changing the way things are taught to students can be a big game-changer for future generations. A lot of students that are not very interested in school can become encouraged to learn new things; this can spark new interests and can create career decisions for those who initially were confused about their future. This can be life-changing for many and therefore I believe it is vital that the focus isn't targeted towards the student's grades as much as it is ensuring that the student is actually absorbing the information.