Thursday, April 09, 2015

America needs central-city and suburban residents to unite in a new coalition to support shared prosperity.

I have been using maps since 1994 to show places in Chicago where people live in concentrated poverty. My efforts have aimed to engage people from beyond poverty in deeper learning that builds their own involvement in solutions to poverty, as solutions that affect the future of their own kids and grand-kids.

This quote "America needs central-city and suburban residents to unite in a new coalition to support shared prosperity." is part of a long article titled "Philanthropy’s Misguided Ideas for Fixing Ghetto Poverty: The Limits of Free Markets and Place-Based Initiatives"

In the past month I've posted several articles focused on closing the opportunity gap, and referring to a new book by Robert Putnam, titled "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis".

I encourage you to read these articles. Share them with the volunteers in your tutor/mentor programs. Share them with family, fiends, church members. Encourage them to form study groups and engage others.

Short term results might be to support existing tutor/mentor programs, so more volunteers get involved and more kids are served. Additional efforts might result in new programs being created where none now exist.

However, the long-term effort aims to create a coalition with a vision for a future America and world where prosperity is shared and opportunity is available for all.

1 comment:

Tutor Mentor Connections said...

This 2016 article from The Nation, focuses on the racial wealth gap and shows how accumulated wealth provides generational advantages to kids from affluent families (mostly White). https://www.thenation.com/article/the-average-black-family-would-need-228-years-to-build-the-wealth-of-a-white-family-today/