I am Moisés García, I am 21 years old, I live in beautiful Iztapalapa and I am a Young Opportunity.

I didn't finish high school until this year when I was 21, but I was able to finish it thanks to my family and my own resources, because the public education system is not enabled for Neurodivergent JO or in this case Joven Oportunidad with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and that's without taking into account that it is not a very friendly system for young mothers and fathers, for young people with disabilities or for diverse youth in general, the system is made for a specific sector of young people which is a very small and reserved one.

This is the beginning of why school dropouts exist. I come from a home with deprivation in which this same system forced my uncle, a great fan of mechanics, who is my father figure and currently my father, to leave school and his part-time job as an electromechanic to work full time and pay for my grandmother's cancer treatment.

My biological father passed away and my uncle took care of me and my sister, and left everything in Mexico to emigrate to the United States for a better life for us and that was the cost of a better life: his education and professional and educational preparation.

What I mean is, not all young people who drop out of school drop out because they want to. We have to understand their context, their history and their environment, and only after understanding this I ask them: What would you have done in their place? Do you now see how difficult it is to be a Joven Oportunidad?

And this is where I come in and my collaboration with the Global Youth Opportunity Network as part of the Youth Advisory Group and representative of the LGBTTTIQA+ community, because it is where my desire and passion for raising my voice, for helping, for guiding and why there was no one to help my uncle is strengthened.

No one will tell him that he has labor rights, no one will tell him that working overtime without pay to “wear the shirt” is wrong, no one will tell him that the legal benefits also include him, no one will come to help him enter the labor market.

If someone had been accompanying him in his preparation, he would surely have found work in Mexico, since there was no one who would give him that first job opportunity here, to be able to create that blessed experience that they ask for so much, since they asked for a minimum of 3 years of formal work experience. An impossible figure to reach if they do not let you demonstrate your empirical talent, which leaves you being a Young Opportunity without experience, you must face prejudices.

Whether you are a mother or father, whether you have tattoos, for your skin color, for the way you dress, for everything. Because employers want young talent, young energy, young dynamism, they want everything young, but they don’t want young people without a career, without work experience, who continue studying, who are mothers or fathers, who have tattoos, who don’t fit their beauty standards, who are from the LGBT community, who have disabilities, who complain about bad practices in their company, who demand that their rights be respected, because be careful if I say that working overtime without pay is wrong and asking that my work schedule be respected, ushhhh no, I won’t tell you, I automatically transform into a “Crystal Generation” kid who doesn’t want to do anything and just get paid.

Forgive me if it makes me wonder how I can ask to make full use of my rights.

And it is for him, for me, for those who couldn't make it and for those who are coming that I don't like to sit back and do nothing knowing that there are more uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters who leave their families, their studies, their dreams to become someone prepared. All in order to have access to a decent life.

At GOYN and the Alliance for Young People with Decent Work, we believe in the power of youth. We believe that only with the collaboration of everyone, including companies, foundations, government, and the voice of the Opportunity Youth, will we be able to help create safe spaces for their recreation, growth, and development.

And, speaking of safe spaces, GOYN and the Alliance for Young People with Decent Work are spaces where you can express your thoughts and feelings. They are places created for the Opportunity Youth in order to listen to them and provide them with the support or guidance they request, since many times other institutions provide training that is obsolete, since it is not possible to connect with the world of work and on too many occasions they think that it is only about putting out mass training or crazy job vacancies for young people.

It's not about that either, it's also about verifying that these positions can provide a decent life for these same people, but many jobs that are for "youth" are done without taking into account that perhaps they are still students, mothers or fathers or are young people with disabilities and they forget about mobility, accessibility and the risks or wear and tear caused by doing 2.5 hours of travel in a job where they leave at 10 PM and arrive home in the early morning without having time to continue their studies or, as in all cases but specifically in the cases of young mothers and fathers, they do not even leave space for recreation with their own family nucleus.

Not to mention the risks faced by young people with disabilities and the lack of accessibility both in the workplace and in the city in general, and all so that in the end the salary is not enough for even two basic baskets... but this is not the only way that the Opportunity Youth are affected, there are many stigmas and erroneous prejudices, because we build and create from our language, so let's stop building stigmas, we Opportunity Youth have a name.

I am Moisés García and I am not a NEET, I am a Young Opportunity.

* Moisés García is a member of the GOYN Youth Advisory Group.