We Grew Up

Jeena as an organization is 10 years old!!

When Jeena started, most of us were babies or toddlers.  Jeena is 10 years old now and we are 10 years older. We just grew up!

A decade may not seem like a huge part of an adult’s life. But for kids like me, that’s like MOST of our life.

No more the cute toddlers are we
We kept growing, you see
Many are strapping Teens.
Taller than our parents, are we

Many of us had unpronounceable names added to the end of our names before we were out of diapers.

ADHD and ADD
PDDNOS and GDD
What the heck are these?

A play of letters?
Are you kidding me?
OMG, a mouthful are these!

I may have Visual Impairment
I may have Cerebral Palsy
I may have Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
I may have a rare Metabolic  Disorder  called  Propionic Acidemia
I may have Autism, each different as the trees

Darn! I can’t even say half the names!

So many labels!!
But with no clues all the same.

Hey Docs,
The Dx (diagnosis), is handed out with ease
Do you have the Rx (prescription) too, please?


What a plethora of labels amongst the Jeena Youth! And not all of us managed to overcome every one of our challenges during our “early-intervention years.”

We ride the emotional roller coaster ride much like our typical peers. We develop our own individual personalities and quirks that both endear us to our parents and sometimes just annoy the heck out of them. And that’s being a Teen!

However, the Human Brain has tremendous plasticity and has the potential to develop and adapt. And the Brain has the greatest plasticity during adolescence, according to Dr. Jay N. Giedd, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, at NIMH, who specializes in brain imaging.

There is no reason then, that we youth cannot continue to march ahead, even if we start now. The slow and steady tortoise did move ahead of the swift hare.


Just endless is the possibilities
In the Noble Youth with Disabilities
Yearning just for the opportunities
To overcome perceived dissimilarities


The discovered talents are a-plenty. For example, I have won awards for my poetry and writing. My writing was even published in the “Best of Teen Writing” (with a foreword by Elie Wiesel - Nobel Peace Laureate). I’ve even had the honor of bowing on the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York for the National Gold Medal I received for my work. 

Amongst my fellow Jeena teens, we have several who are talented and versatile musicians. We have a teen who can discuss the complexities of Indian Classical Music at the level of a music professor. And if you think about it, how many people can play by the ear, without having been formally taught? When we pursue our interests, we do them with amazing depth and intensity. Some may call them “obsessions and compulsions,” but from another angle, these are “genius” and “passion.”

We have a teen who is on her city’s youth commission and is an online NASA inspired member. She also wants to be a neurologist. We are not new to the world of doctors, medicine, surgery, physiology, and psychology – we’ve been immersed and have been a first-hand observer to these all our lives. No doubt some of us will be very successful in these fields.

And we have many ambitions for our lives. I definitely see a place for myself as a poet and writer. And maybe even a research scientist as well. A writer and scientist can both influence and contribute to the world. Our minds can think from different perspectives that allow interesting and sometimes innovative insights. 

We have a Jeena youth who is a political science major at UC Irvine, with ambitions of becoming a lawyer.  His high school graduation speech was so inspiring that his school principal quoted this teen’s words in his speech. Just imagine the lawyer he will make.

We have teens who want to become chefs, teachers, artists, and Hollywood animators. Creativity flows and weaves, unlimited as our imaginations. One teen even wants to open a pillow factory. He may just be the inventor of the next generation of ergonomic pillows.  Did Dr. Temple Grandin not revolutionize the field of Animal Husbandry?

Differing Abilities or Un-Discovered Abilities?
That really is the question!


For others, talent and interests could be latent and yet un-discovered. Sometimes the physical, mental and emotional challenges presented by our diagnosis get in the way of us being able to express our ideas.

We teens enjoy and pursue different leisure activities from dancing to sports like skiing. We often have to push ourselves harder and longer in order to be able to do many of these things. Yet we try and try, till we succeed. And, what would the world be for the teen girl without shopping? Many of our Jeena teen girls love shopping, jewelry and clothes – all the rites of a teen girlhood. 

We Jeena teens are not just “special.” We can be “extra-special” and  “extra-ordinary” too in our own way.


Be Patient with US
Open Opportunities for US
Guide US

Watch US amaze YOU !