Tenth grade never taught me how to lead a protest in the fourth-largest city in the nation. Five months ago, I was getting my driver’s license and shopping for a homecoming dress. Now, I’m meeting with city officials, answering press calls and recruiting student representatives from 20 different school districts, all to organize the March for Our Lives in Houston. It will be part of a national movement advocating for school and gun safety in response to the Parkland shooting and continued government inaction. High schoolers like me are taking the lead, and there’s a real reason the youth need to remain at the forefront of this movement.

Simply put, adults cannot understand this movement the same way we can. We are the generation raised on mass shootings. We were the ones enrolled in elementary school when a man walked into Sandy Hook and shot 20 children dead. We’re the ones crouched monthly under desks in a darkened room, hoping that it’s a drill. We’re the ones who have heard about these tragedies in the news since we were little kids and have grown up understanding that on any given day, our school could be next.

To teenagers across the country, the Parkland shooting felt deeply personal. The movement it sparked was the culmination of years of frustration, resignation and helplessness. For two decades, school shootings were not isolated incidents; they were a fact of life.

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Imagine if, as a teenager, you realized that the plague of mass school violence in your country wasn’t present in the rest of the world. And that the government had refused to take any sort of action on a problem that everyone else had already figured out the answer to.

Maybe you were a teenager during Vietnam or the civil rights movement. Regardless, I’m sure you can empathize with kids everywhere realizing that to the government, student lives don’t matter as much as raising money for a re-election .

When you see photos of students walking out of their classrooms, holding hands and homemade posters, can’t you just feel the raw emotion coursing through our generation? Our hearts are filled to the brim with outrage and passion, hurt and resolve.

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Look at it this way: We are completely unrepresented in the government. The youngest standing member of Congress is more than twice my age. Not one member of the Senate was in high school when the Columbine shooting occurred. Our government officials don’t have the perspective on this issue that we have, because they haven’t grown up with it. And yet, when we voice our thoughts, all kinds of people want to speak over us.

Don’t worry, adults — the world is still yours. You run it, not us. To be sure, this is probably a good thing. We may not be ready to take the world from you yet, just like you may not be ready to let it go. But remember that we have to live here, too. We need to be protected. Most importantly, we need to be heard.

I cannot stress enough how helpful adults have been throughout this process. We don’t have the kind of experience and expertise you all do. If you have donated or supported us in any way — I’d like to offer a huge thank you from the student organizers.

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The truth is that we need the support of adults to pull this off. We need you there on Saturday, marching behind us both figuratively and literally. We need you to vote to protect us, the children and students of Houston.

Parents raise empowered children. Encourage your sons and daughters to get involved, even if you don’t agree with the cause. Give them and their friends a ride to the march this Saturday. Help them make signs for the rally, or submit art through our website. It’s scary for us kids to speak out; don’t punish yours for taking a stand.

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The students of Houston are united, passionate, and strong. This is not us begging for your permission to march, but asking for your support. On Saturday morning — 9 a.m. at Tranquility Park downtown — we will take to the streets to fight for our lives. Our question is, will you be there with us?