TV Reviews : ‘Leaders’: a Vision of Youth With a Vision

We hear a great deal about the younger generation’s shaky ethics, drug use, irresponsible sexuality, self-absorbed consumerism. It makes us worry about how they, as adults, will cope with the nation’s staggering burden of social ills.

Catch a ray of hope in “Take Me to Your Leaders,” an outstanding, strongly worded special hosted by James Garner, at 9 tonight on KTLA Channel 5. Written, directed and produced by Carol L. Fleisher, the program profiles compassionate, committed future leaders--ages 10 to 21--whose vision has already effected change.

Ten-year-old Audrey Chase successfully lobbied for federal legislation to establish a national children’s tree-planting program. She urges kids not to think that they can’t do something, but instead to think, “Why not?”

Katie Christie, 18, founded--and runs--a local chapter of “Peace Child USA” in Miami, using the theater arts program to bring together children from diverse backgrounds to assuage racial tensions. She says changing society begins when we change ourselves.

Dan Altman, 16, organized “City United,” described as an “urban Peace Corps,” a rainbow of hundreds of young volunteers who help society’s most needy with humanizing, one-on-one interaction. “If I could change one thing in the world,” he says, “it would be that everybody cared.”

Other profiles include two teens involved in California’s Junior State Governor’s election, a U.S. Air Force Academy cadet and a five-week leadership program for select college students called Leadership America.

The remarkable “Raising Good Kids in Bad Times” series--this is the fifth segment--continues to prove the folly of squandering our richest resource: children.