What does it mean when we say we want the kids who
join us in 7th grade to "be in a job or career by age 25?"
Below is the front page from the October 15, 1992
Chicago SunTimes. This editorial was created in response to
the shooting of a 7 year-old boy in Cabrini Green. We
started Cabrini Connections, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection in the
weeks following this tragedy. In the editorial, the SunTimes
demands action. They say "it is everyone's responsibility".
We
believe that.
I look at this every week. Unfortunately, in the 16
years since, I've added additional stories like this to the tragedies
claiming inner city kids.
This year more than 35 Chicago Public
School students have been killed. More have been shot. Any who live in
inner city neighborhoods are terrorized. The media don't do a
front page story for most of these. They only cover this story
occasionally. During the lull, those of us who have made a
commitment to end the violence and hopelessness of poverty by providing
paths to jobs and careers, are left on our own to find the help needed
to sustain our programs.
We need more than random acts of kindness. We need a
vision strategy that connects kids with school based and non-school
learning, starting in elementary school and continuing through college
and until a youth is working. While parents, teachers and mentors
are PUSHING kids to make good decisions, work hard on their studies, and
stay away from drugs, sex and gangs, we need the workplace to support
this process by encouraging volunteers to be tutors/mentors, and to
support the infrastructure of tutor/mentor programs with talent and
dollars.
Furthermore, we need leaders from business, politics, religion, media, sports, etc. who will make a concious effort to keep the focus on this vision every week, or month, throughout the year, and through the next decade.
That's because it usually takes 12 years for a first grader to finish high school. That's in the best circumstances. Kids in inner city war zones are not growing up in the best circumstances, or with the best schools.
In the links library at
http://www.tutormentorconnection.org we have many articles on
poverty, high school drop outs, workforce development, etc. These
show that kids in the highest, most segregated neighborhoods are without
hope, and without lifelines, connecting them to the outside world.
Volunteers in tutor/mentor programs can create these lifelines, not only
providing help in building aspirations and study skills, but in helping
kids get into college, and get into jobs following college, or even
following jail or a GED. Most kids living in poverty will
never have this type of lifeline, because there are very few programs
like Cabrini Connections in most high poverty neighborhoods, and few
with the long-term vision that we outline when we make a commitment to
"do all we can to help kids be in jobs and careers by age 25."
In order to keep that commitment Cabrini Connections, and other tutor/mentor programs, must find ways to
obtain the daily bread we need to operate. However, we also must turn
our volunteers and supporters into learners and advocates, so that there
are an army of people writing what I'm telling you, spreading the Gospel
of tutoring/mentoring throughout the city and throughout the country.
Only then will be get the attention of CEOs, media and presidents, who
need to become the owners of this vision and this strategy.
Each week during the year I will write articles about
this vision and the needs of tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini
Connections in my blog at
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com. Other members of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (Nicole White and Mike Trakan) are
also writing blogs that talk about the citywide need for tutor/mentor
programs. Links to their blogs can be found on my blog.
El Da'Sheon Nix is the Administrative Coordinator for Cabrini Connections, and the primary writer of the
http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com . This will focus on the activities
of Cabrini Connections. On the Cabrini Blog page you'll also find
links to Chris Warren's blog, and the Tech and Writing Club blogs.
You'll also find a fund raising blog written by Cassina Sanders.
We encourage volunteers and their students to keep their own
blogs, as a journal of their time with each other and with Cabrini
Connections. We created an internal community for students and volunteers, called SVHATS.
As a result of how we share information, we feel that leaders from around the country, who want to operate a program with similar goals and similar structure, can visit the Cabrini Connections web site to not only design their program, but to find ideas to support their students and volunteers each week. You're invited to use the information. Just let us know you are doing this and join with us in on-line forums where we share what we do and collaborate to build visibility and funding for all of us.
As volunteers journey through the weekly sessions and the 2008-09 school year with Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, we hope to expand the understanding of the
responsibilities we all have to keep the memory of kids like Dantrell
Davis alive, and to keep building a path to jobs and careers as a
result.
We hope this helps you and look forward to hearing from you.
Contact El Da Sheon Nix or
Dan Bassill
Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron, First Floor
Chicago, IL 60642
Phone: 312-492-9614
Fax: 312-492-9795
Please read the blogs .............
http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com