Violence, Racism, Nazis - Don't just voice your anger.

While social media reacted with a mountain of posts about the White Supremacist, Nazi, KKK- led march in Chancellorsville, VA, young men and women continued to be shot and killed in Chicago neighborhoods.   Responses to both are inadequate.

I've been using maps as part of an on-going public education strategy, for 23 years to focus attention on places where people suffer, due to poverty, violence, inadequate schools, etc and have created far too many focused on the Austin neighborhood on the West side of Chicago.  I updated this map today, showing where two men were gunned down on Sunday morning, right in front of the Friendship Baptist Church in the Austin neighborhood.

Since I had created several map views of Austin for past articles, all I did this time was pull up a previously created map and add a circle to show where the church is located and add a small screen shot showing how this story was featured in today's Chicago Tribune.

The name of the church sounded familiar so I looked at a map I had created a few years ago to show some churches that were providing mentoring to youth.  The Friendship Baptist Church is number at the bottom of this map.

I did a presentation at one of these churches a few years ago, sharing the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web resources and inviting each church to set up a study group to dig into the ideas I'm sharing and apply them to build strong tutor, mentor learning strategies at each church, and in other locations, throughout the Austin neighborhood.

One map I've shared often shows transit routes bringing people from affluent suburbs surrounding Chicago to where they work in the downtown area. Every day thousands of people past right by the Friendship Baptist Church, but I doubt that many are stopping to offer time, talent and dollars to help youth in the neighborhood move through school and into jobs.

Here's another graphic from my library. This could be used to show the design of a mentor-rich program, indicating that volunteers and learning experiences come from many different sources.

However, it could also show that at each spoke on the wheel there are groups of people leading others into the information I've been sharing for 24 years, to look for more information about why people are killing each other, and ways to build a system of supports that leads to different outcomes.

Here's another map that the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) created nearly ten years ago, showing the 7th Congressional District, which includes the Austin neighborhood.  We created several versions of this (see pdf) showing businesses, faith groups, hospitals and universities, along with the transit route connecting rich and poor from Chicago's West suburbs to the downtown area.

The goal was that elected leaders pull people together to help build and sustain mentor-rich programs in all poverty neighborhoods of their district.  That's still a goal.

If you're reading this and want to take action, maybe start by pulling up some of the past articles I've written about the Austin neighborhood. Click here.  Then systematically browse through other articles, category by category, and bring together a group of friends, family, co-workers, etc. and begin to talk about ways you might implement some of the ideas.

I'd be happy to act as a friend and consultant to help you set up a learning community and begin to mobilize more consistent flow of resources to support the growth of needed programs and services in these neighborhoods.

At the same time I encourage you to review the 4-part strategy that I've described in articles like these, and see how this applies to other problems we need to better  understand and combat with more consistent flows of time, talent and dollars.