A Young Native American's Journey From Jail To Award-Winning Film Actor - Lessons In How To Help Our Struggling Youth

“I have been in trouble for drinking, selling weed and beating up people since I was fourteen, and by the age of sixteen I was already in jail.” That was Wendell Mills Jr.’s life up until a year ago. In July of last year, two months after his release from a six month term in juvenile detention, his life unexpectedly took a new direction.

Wendell, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (UMUT) in Towaoc, Colorado, who is now 18, vividly remembers that moment. “I was hanging out at the gym, when Alex Munoz, founder and creative director of Films by Youth Inside (FYI), talked to me about taking part in a film class he was offering. I had second thoughts — I had no goals or plans for my life — but then I thought, ‘I should just do it.’”

During the FYI film workshop, UMUT youths wrote, performed, directed and produced the film Escape, which portrays how two teenagers, Adam and Rachel, plan to escape their troubled lives through a joint suicide. Although fictional, the film realities depicted in the film of poverty, drugs and alcohol, homophobia, bullying, and not knowing where to find help, all contribute to the hopelessness of these two young people. Wendell played the challenging role of Adam.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reiner-lomb/a-young-native-americans-_b_10762650.html