EllieAna Hale
Reporter

In a groundbreaking collaboration between Northeast News and Mattie Rhodes Center, My Pain, My Power is striving to delve into the lives of troubled youth, giving power and voices to their stories to provide an inside look at our community.

In 45-minute podcast episode segments, My Pain, My Power explores the challenges, resilience, and transformative power of personal narratives that youth in the Northeast neighborhood experience firsthand as they navigate issues of gang violence, addiction, deportation, gun violence, and more. 

Inspired by a Northeast Newscast podcast about the Mattie Rhodes Center Ofrenda cemetery dedicated to youth homicides, Addiction Specialist Molly Manske and Northeast News Publisher Michael Bushnell began constructing the project, launching the first episode on Dec. 16th, 2023.

Listen here!

“It’s a way of giving listeners an inside experience of what’s going on in these youth’s lives, but also a way for these youth to see that their story and their pain have power in their life, and they can have control over the narrative in their life,” Manske said. 

The series intends to inspire positive change in not only the youth’s lives but also seeks to create a wave of positive change in the neighborhood by showcasing the strength and resilience of these young individuals. 

“Instead of using what they’ve been through as a way to push them towards those negative environments, they can see how their story can have greater power,” Manske said.

My Pain, My Power is not just a podcast series; it’s an opportunity to empower youth and inspire change. 

The series may be explicit at times, but the overarching goal of the series is to provide a platform to authentically provide the stories that these individuals have experienced. 

“We want to be able to empower these kids to be able to take control of their story and to be able to see that it wasn’t fair that they were abused growing up or that they saw their father beat their mom growing up, but that story could be your power,” Manske said. “That power is a chance to do something greater in life that could motivate you, or motivate others to change their lives.”

The next episode is set for release on Jan. 13, 2024. The future of the series seeks to give voice and speak to as many young individuals as possible.