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Louisiana Environmental Action Network

When the Shintech corporation wanted to put a polyvinyl chemical plant on Mercshondria Honor's family land in Convent, Louisiana, the then 14-year-old girl found herself taking part in community meetings and helping her aunt do research on chemical plants dumping toxins and buying legislators.

Three years later she's the youth advisory council president of Louisiana Environmental Action Network. LEAN.

"A lot of youth are afraid to speak up because their parents work for the plants," says Honor, 17. And the enemies her group face are formidable. The big corporations win support in the community because they promise to bring in jobs. But once the plants are operational the jobs frequently turn out to be short term or contract positions that soon disappear.

"They lie to us a lot but eventually we find out the truth," she says.

LEAN's Youth Advisory Council has attracted youth from age 5 to age 20. Honor recently led the group on their charge into Louisiana Governor Foster's office with 100 other youth by her side to bring the problems of Cancer Alley to his attention.

"Governor Foster ... we called him the Baldheaded Eagle ... called the youth 'trouble makers,'" she recalls. Still Foster, though hostile to community groups was a bit more willing to take time to hear young people's concerns. In Honor's home parish of St. James 3,700 people have died in recent years of cancer and heart disease, mostly young people. But, "all he had to say was 'oh well.'"

It was not her first frustrating experience as a youth organizer. She keeps going through "prayer, meditation and a whole bunch of crying."

She plans to study computer engineering at Southern University in Baton Rouge after finishing high school and wants to strengthen her group before she goes.

Honor would tell other youth organizers to "keep hope alive ... there are a lot of things going to try to derail you. Keep focused and pray daily and meditate and nobody can turn you around."