In the social sciences, the literature on risk has largely been focused on the neoliberal bent with which we approach the concept. I want to complicate that picture by introducing the ethnographic reality of risk. By continuously engaging in risk-taking through their actions, my interlocutors turn that neoliberal discourse of risk on its head. Instead of youths ‘at-risk,’ I argue that my interlocutors are instead youths risking their bodies in order to forge their own narratives. At TCS, what is highlighted are the alternative pathways that the youths there make possible and pursue. In contrast to the bureaucratic and scholarly discourses that do not take into account the lived realities of the very people these discourses seek to capture, the youths at TCS show how the boundaries of these discourses are constantly being exceeded by their experiences and worldviews.