Election Day. I Voted. More Work Ahead.

I voted today and it looks like millions of others are doing the same.  Now we'll spend tonight and the next few days following the results, and hoping that enough voters have fought through all of the barriers put in place by incumbents, of both parties, and placed votes that bring in a new wave of results-oriented, progressive representatives, at the national and state level, all over the country.

Whatever happens, the work to make life opportunities better for disadvantaged youth, for people fleeing conflict and persecution in foriegn countries (or in this one), and for people just looking for better opportunities for themselves and their families, will continue tomorrow.

Look for programs on Twitter

I say CONTINUE because there are hundreds of youth and family serving organizations already operating in Chicago and other places who have been doing needed work for many years. We need to find and support them with time, talent, dollars, technology and ideas, so each is constantly growing their impact.

You can search my list of Chicago area programs at this link.

Chicago Community Areas -
youth in poverty

At the same time we need to be developing information tools, such as the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator that my organization developed between 2004 and 2009, that can be used to determine where more programs are needed and to help identify assets (business, faith groups, hospitals, colleges, etc) who could be helping programs grow in different parts of the city and suburbs.

In addition we  need to support those who are building information libraries that can be used by anyone to better understand issues, opportunities and challenges that need to be overcome.  The video below is an introduction to the web library that I have been building since the early 1990s.



My library divides into four sections, which I show in the cMap below.  The two sections on the left (green node and yellow node) contain information focused on poverty, inequality, youth development, education and lists of youth serving organizations in Chicago and around the country).

Open link under each node to dig deeper into each section - click here

The two sections on the right (pink and orange) contain information anyone in the world could use to support social entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations working to make life better for people and planet Earth. Open the links under each node, and dig deeper into the library. Return often.

The graphic at the right is a combination of a "Race-Poverty" concept map that I created and The Global Goals graphic showing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.  See it in this article.

Every node on this graphic needs to have an information library similar to the one I've been building.  People working to solve problems that these graphics point to could be using some of the links that I have in the two nodes on the left side of my map.

They could be adding more.

I've been collecting and sharing information as part of a Tutor/Mentor Learning Network strategy, launched in 1993.  This presentation describes the work I've been doing and shows that much help is needed.

Tutor/Mentor Institute - Le... by on Scribd

Anyone collecting information related to any of the problems we're focused on in today's election, could be following the same path that I've been on, creating an information hub, and an learning network, where more and more people with different talents, resources and networks could be working to solve some of the problems that we're focusing on in today's election.

This article is just one of more than one thousand that I've posted on this blog since starting it in 2005. I encourage learners to dig through past articles, using the tags shown at the left, to discover ideas posted in the past that are still important and relevant for solving problems in the future.

I'd be happy to  help people think this through and walk you through the library I've been hosting.  I'd love to find a university who'd want to create an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Institute and take ownership of the work I've done for the past 25+ years.

However, I also would appreciate a few people who have read this far to visit my FUNDME page and send a contribution so I can continue doing this work until other partners step forward.