Miguel, 21, a lively young man with a sharp sense of humor, has loved drawing as long as he can remember. As a little boy growing up in the San Juan de Aragon neighborhood of Mexico City, he always drew on a notepad that he kept with him at all times. When he got to secondary school, however, he turned to painting graffiti in his community. With little to do after school, he joined a youth gang, and at night the group would roam the neighborhood, and draw huge pictures on the sides of buildings, which was against the law. Miguel, too busy hanging out with his gang to pay attention to his studies, dropped out of school.

Last year, he heard about a program called Ocupate (“Get busy!”) that works with gang members, run by the Cauce Ciudadano organization. As a result, Miguel participated in a life skills program funded by the GE Foundation. “This program taught me to be more tolerant of others, to walk in their shoes, but also to have more confidence in my skills as an artist,” he said. “I realized that I wanted to use my talents in a good way, not to waste them on vandalism, but to use them in a better direction.” Inspired by the life skills training course, Miguel, who still draws constantly, even when in a meeting, is now designing postcards that have an educational message on the back. They are distributed free to young people across Mexico City. “This was my idea to try to communicate to my peers through art, and I work with Erika and others to write the messages.” Most of the postcards, which are beautifully designed by Miguel with drawings of young people, deal with how to have healthy relationships, how to stop sexual abuse, and how to lead a healthy lifestyle. “Do you now how you become infected with a sexual disease?” asks one. “These are strong messages about the right to dignity and the right to have opportunities to develop,” says Miguel. He is now planning to return to school and become a professional painter. “It’s my passion,” he says.

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