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Oasis Center Girls Ask 'What's Going On In The World'?

The list of questions girls from the Oasis Center asked each other during recorded conversations at the WFSU Studios.
LHatter
/
WFSU News

The Summer of 2016 has seen several mass killings, a mud-slinging presidential election campaign and voter pessimism skyrocket. And that attitude is not just limited to adults.

WFSU asked a group of young ladies from the Oasis Center for Women and Girls to interview one another during a recent trip to the radio studios. They wrote their own questions, and understood they could ask each other anything. But one question stood out:

"What are you thoughts on what's currently going on in the world?"
"My thoughts are, I'm very disappointed because during the Orlando shooting, I didn't like that a lot. And in Turkey, 28 more people died." -- Macayla Holmes, 11
"I think police brutality, all of the hate crimes going around--the Orlando shooting, that was terrifying I live there. It's a mess. The only place I haven't heard anything about is Canada, to be honest. and my dad has a superstition that they're just keeping their stuff secret so that everyone thinks it's a wonderful place." -- Azia McRay, 12
"I think that it's a little overwhelming to just see everything that's happening and all of the sad things. Seems like right now we haven't been getting a lot of good news. This summer just feels kind of sad." -- Candace Tavares, 20
"My thought may be like other people. There's bad times stuff in the world. There never used to be a time when there was really good stuff, but all these shootings and stuff, it's not good. America's really going downhill." -- Janay Greyer, 12

That was 11-year olds Allison Mikyska and Makayla Holmes,  12-yearold Azia McCray and camp counselor Candace Tavares, 11-year-old Qiy’yam Ibrheem and 12-year-old Janay Greyer. Theirs might not be the responses listeners would expect from a group of mostly pre-teens. But a lot has happened in the past few weeks.

  • June 12: A gunman opens fire in a gay Orlando nightclub killing 49 and wounding 53. 
  • June 23: Britain votes to leave the European Union
  • June 28: an airport in Turkey is bombed.The first reported death toll is 28, but rises to 36 and then to 41.
  • July 5: Alton Sterling is shot by a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  • July 6: Philando Castile is shot by a police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota
  • July 7: A black gunman opens fire on police officers overseeing a  protest against officer-involved shootings in Dallas, TX. Five officers are killed.
  • July 14 Scores of people are killed after a truck plows through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France
  • July 17 A Missouri man kills three law officers and wounded three others in an ambush in Baton Rouge, LA

Follow @HatterLynn

Lynn Hatter is a Florida A&M University graduate with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Lynn has served as reporter/producer for WFSU since 2007 with education and health care issues as her key coverage areas.  She is an award-winning member of the Capital Press Corps and has participated in the NPR Kaiser Health News Reporting Partnership and NPR Education Initiative. 

Find complete bio, contact info, and more stories here.