Help Kids in Poverty Move from Birth-to-Work

I've posted articles around Labor Day almost every year since starting this blog in 2005.  I hope you'll read some of them and apply the ideas in Chicago or in your own community. 

Since I've lived in Chicago and its suburbs since 1973 my focus has always been on helping kids in big city high poverty, segregated neighborhoods.  The map below illustrates that there are many cities in the USA where people could apply the ideas and strategies I've piloted in Chicago to help kids in those places.

The map is from a 2015 Brookings.edu article which you can find at this link. It's one of many articles I've found over the past 40 years that emphasize how where you are born and where you live determines your health and economic success in life.  

I've used the graphic below since the 1990s to visualize how an organized, site-based, non-school tutor and/or mentor program can be a place that connects youth to adults from many different backgrounds and expands "who you know" and "what you might aspire to".  

Note that in the middle circle of this graphic is a birth-to-work timeline. In the graphic above I also used a birth-to-work graphic.  Below is another graphic that visualizes the same goal.

Here's one of several articles where I use this graphic. It emphasizes the need for teams of people to work at the program level, the neighborhood level, the city level, and the national or international level, to help long-term, mentor-rich programs grow in high poverty areas.  That means helping them get the talent, volunteers, technology, ideas and operating dollars needed EVERY YEAR.

Thus, if you're gathering face-to-face, or on ZOOM, or just posting Tweets or notes on social media this weekend, think of ways you can help such teams grow in your own community.  Think of ways you can share on your own blog or website the strategies you are developing and how you can connect with people in other neighborhoods, or other cities, to share what you are learning.  

I've started updating the Tutor/Mentor web library again and as I've viewed websites I started to make a list of Twitter accounts.  I this Tweet you can see how I share the list and encouraged those on the list to connect and learn from each other.

Youth As Leaders; Service Learning orgs in #Tutor/#Mentor library. Are you following? @inspirecitizen1 @cultofpedagogy @aptpchicago @CivicYouth @byp100 @bravenewvoices @ChicagoDebates @CLF_Empowers @cwinstitute @DreamsForKids @earthforce @StopChicago @FreeSpiritChi @cmapillinois pic.twitter.com/ARqnjwX1Uh

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) September 3, 2021

I'll be posting links like this often over the next few weeks. I hope you'll visit the accounts, then their websites, and look for ideas you can borrow and ways you can draw attention and support to EACH of these organizations. 

If my example helps, then please duplicate it. 

Thank you for reading.  I'm on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and hope to connect with you. Find links here.

I've received many awards for the work I've been doing. 20 years ago today I received an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan University. That was just a week prior to the 9/11 attack.

Today that recognition needs to be expressed in how readers share my posts and how some help fund my continued work. 

Visit this page and use the PayPal to send a contribution if you can.