By Eliazar Guerra, KidCAT Contributor

I never thought my love for making music would be more than another way to express myself. I remember writing music as an adolescent, believing I was good but telling myself my talent would never matter to anyone else.

Recently, KidCAT gave me the opportunity to let my light shine. Unfortunately, the music I previously made glorified the wrong things. I was glorifying the very lifestyle that those in the program train participants to avoid. I did not understand the power of my words and the impact they could have until I redirected them to the right cause.

I’m fortunate to be at San Quentin where I can be a part of the KidCAT program. At first, I couldn’t see how important the program would be to me. I didn’t know how deeply I would get involved. I was still early in my rehabilitation and didn’t understand how much knowledge and insight the program could provide to participants who see it through.

I was participating in KidCAT’s first step program when the light clicked on and the meaning of the program’s name “Creating Awareness Together,” became clear to me. I remember asking myself, “What can I do to spread this life changing awareness”?

I felt a strong obligation to do my part, to find a way to contribute something. Meanwhile, the group voted me in as secretary. That was a sign that the group had confidence in me, which made me more self-assured. Before that, I wasn’t very self-confident. But I saw these guys as positive role models and they had shown that they believed I could represent them.

Shortly after that, I told the group about my love for writing music and they asked me to compose a song for the program. As I began to think about what that song could look like, I first had to tell myself that this wasn’t about me. It was about all those guys who came before me in the program and the work they put into its creation, making sure it was there for me when I came along.

Still not sure what I would write in the song, I asked myself what a youth offender facing hard time would need to hear about KidCAT. I then felt that there was no better way to explain the program than to use the first step curriculum and to highlight the modules through my lyrics. The modules are emotion/sensations, self-identity, masculinity, environment influences, consequences, communication, empathy, compassion, and forgiving.

From my participation in the program, I have learned how I was affected growing up by the emotional unavailability of caregivers, and I knew that so many others could relate to my experiences. Those experiences cause youth to seek the wrong environment for validation and acceptance. I wrote about that impact in the song and about how, unfortunately, seeking acceptance in the wrong places results in accumulation of criminal thinking and beliefs.

I titled the song “A letter from KidCAT.” Through the lyrics, I explain how rehabilitative classes like KidCAT’s first step lead to understanding that our criminality crippled our growth and kept us from healing throughout our childhood and as adults. We lacked understanding of our traumas, developed false identities influenced by negative environmental influences, and we projected our pain onto others.

Participants in KidCAT’s first step learn to prepare release prevention plans while gaining the skills to utilize them and acquiring empathy through understanding of victim impact. In the lyrics, I remind folks to “think about the consequences.” If we didn’t understand the impact we were having on our communities when we acted out of our pain and made poor decisions, then we have to “heal from our pain so we can give back” and “make a difference.”

The commitment is forever so that we can represent the awareness we create together. I’m forever grateful that through music I’m able to shine in the KidCAT program.