Anna: Age 16, Brooklyn

People should be able to have fun and be who they are. I figure you should be who you want to be. I live in Bed-Sty and a lot of people there are ignorant. People have called me "dyke", but they don't understand. They don't even know me. They have to learn. That's why I love to do trainings.

I became a Peer Educator at Hetrick-Martin because I heard from other people how cool it was. Before then I'd never known people who were gay; I had just never thought about it. But I came to Hetrick-Martin with some friends and liked it. Since then, I've met a lot of people that I would never have really talked to before. My boyfriend didn't like me coming here, but he got used to it. I told him that gay people are just people like you and me, and so he just had to get over it!

I love the feeling I get when I'm doing a training for other youth and I love sharing the information I've learned about human sexuality and safer sex. It's weird but I just love hearing their questions and sharing the answers and helping them to try and understand and think about things. I don't force them, but if they want to learn, then that's why I'm there. I can't explain how it feels; it's just really good.

People come to me at school now and ask me about condoms and about Hetrick-Martin. My sister asks me questions about safer sex and birth control. She's younger than me and now she feels comfortable asking me questions.

I like the people here at HMI. There's such a variety of people. You come to the Drop In Center and see so many different kinds of people. Just being around different people you learn a lot. I think you should just be who you are and who you want to be!