Chicago Mayor launched #EveryKidConnected Youth Initiative

I was one of more than 200 invited to attend a meeting at the Chicago Cultural Center yesterday, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot launched her #EveryKidConnected initiative. (By the end of the 2 hour event this became #EveryYouthConnected).

Click the link above and you can find Tweets posted by myself and a few others during and following the event.

Here's a paragraph that sounds much like what the Mayor said in her welcoming remarks:

 Chicago can only succeed as a city if every part of Chicago succeeds.

Chicago won’t move forward unless we all work to move forward together. Success will be measured by asking whether all of our communities are thriving.

These plans are highly interdependent. For how can we even begin to think about the way our government should be structured and run without deep consideration of the supports that communities need and the best way to deliver those services? How can we grow without strong communities? How can we ponder what is best for our communities without thinking hard about the challenges our children face?

Was this Mayor Lightfoot? No it's from Mayor Emanuel's Plan of Chicago, launched in 2011. I posted it here. 

Here's another blog article that I posted in 2011.

Then, here's an earlier article, posted in 2009 when President Obama launched a mentoring initiative from the White House.  At the left side of this blog you can find a category for Obama and find other articles where I've tried to reach into his thinking and actions.

Then in 2013 when Thrive Chicago was launched by Mayor Emanuel, I posted this article.

There's a common thread in each of these articles. 

Since 1993 I've been building a library of ideas that would support the growth of well-organized non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs in every high poverty neighborhood. It's been available to anyone doing research related to this issue.  Yet, if any of the people organizing these initiatives were looking at this information, none have reached out to ask for my help...during the initial planning, not at an event where I'm part of 200 other people.

Here's a much earlier example. In 1993 and 1994 Mayor Richard Daley's office researched ways to build a network of youth serving organizations. This 1995 report announced their plan.

1995 Chicago For Youth

The link to the PDF report is here.  Even though I had led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago since 1975 and had just launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1994, I was not invited to contribute ideas to this planning process.

1998 article

It's not as though I was invisible in Chicago. Here's a 1998 article from Crain's Chicago Business. It's one of many you can view on this page.

While I share my ideas on blogs and via pdf white papers on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website, the library I've been building since the mid 1990s points to the ideas of thousands of other people and organizations, in Chicago and around the world.

Below is a Tweet I posted during yesterday's event, pointing to a report published by The American Institute of Architects Chicago (AIA Chicago).

Great slides by @AIAChicago

Find at https://t.co/nALzgjQyU2#EveryKidConnected

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) October 10, 2019

Personal Learning Network

I have been trying to motivate volunteers, donors, leaders and youth to form personal learning networks (described in this article) for more than 40 years. The libraries I've been building have been intended to help volunteers do more to help youth, and donors and volunteers do more to help youth programs grow in more places.

The information has been on line since 1998.  Can't anyone find it?

Here's one more Tweet from yesterday, showing what I hope results from my own efforts on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

I would love to have a one on one conversation with you to fill in the gaps from your blog and just simply learn from your experience so far! Do you have an office, I can drop by at?

— Arushi Rai (@therealarushi) October 11, 2019

I'm available. I can meet via Skype of meet at your office. If you spend time in advance looking through my web sites and blog articles you'll know much more about what I'm trying to do before we meet. That way you won't be overwhelmed by what I share when we do meet.

I only wish I'd been able to have this influence 25 years ago.

Here's one more challenge. Visiting my web sites and borrowing my ideas is free. It just costs you time. However, since 2011 I've not been funded to do this, or to keep the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC resources on line. I've used my own savings and I depend on a small group of contributors. Will you help?  click here