Blog the Ninth

One of the most dangerous parts of being a teenager, and especially a teenaged girl, is the alienation and lack of support that Pipher so clearly illustrated in Reviving Ophelia. Without anyone who girls feel that they can trust to talk about their issues, more and more of them succumb to the pressures of modern Western society and suffer from eating disorders (as covered in Wolf), depression, self-harm and addiction. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers, and girls are much more likely to attempt suicide than their male counterparts.

An organization that has dedicated themselves to fighting back against these problems is To Write Love On Her Arms, based out of Central Florida. Started with a short story and a MySpace-based plea for money to help fund a friend's treatment in 2006, TWLOHA has become something of an iconic force in the scene of music that occupies Warped Tour crowds and the iPods of teenagers who most need this kind of support. It isn't a massive multi-national organization with hundreds of employees and a vast, sweeping plan for aid and impact across continents, but its mission has the potential to affect some of the people in this country that are most in need of the kind of help it can offer. Having someone from one of your favourite bands tell you that you're not crazy and you're not alone won't do you any good if you don't have running water or a roof over your head, but if you're hurting inside and don't have any other meaningful source of emotional support, sometimes it can make all the difference.

29 year old founder Jamie Tworkowski is a Christian, and the Christian ethic is clear in the mission statement of the organization and the bands that support it, but it isn't exclusively meant to further Christian goals. Rather reaches out to anyone who's hurting and needing help, and the explicitly go out of their way to include people who do not consider themselves Christian in their continuing efforts to foster a safe, supportive community.

They send a portion of all their proceeds directly to treatment and recovery groups from a number of countries( listed here) and their "To Write Love On Her Arms" and "Love is the Movement" shirts have been raising awareness of their cause in a fashion-forward way for the past few years, opening up a line of communication about issues that are often difficult to discuss.

(And it might interest you to know that the vast majority of their merchandise is produced by American Apparel in downtown LA by workers receiving a living wage. As to where the cotton is sourced from I cannot say, but I feel that Enlow would be suitably appeased.)