Remembering 9/11 - How much sacrifice is enough?

Today people in the USA and friends from around the world are pausing for a few moments to remember the lives lost in the 9/11 tragedy and in the 24-year war on terrorism that has taken place sense then.

I add my prayers of hope and remembrance to the families of those directly, and indirectly, affected by these events. 

However, I would like to go a step further.

I'd like to ask everyone to dig a bit deeper and to find a little more time to try to understand the poverty in the world that is a breeding ground for these events. While nature causes hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires and floods, it is poverty that gives us the images of desperate people in affected areas.

While it is a small group of fanatics fanning the fire of terrorism, it is poverty that provides recruits for these fanatics.

Thus, it's poverty we need to understand and deal with.

While the US focuses on the tragedy unfolding in different parts of the world, I keep thinking of what will be needed for decades to help people in these areas recover from these disasters.

Since 2005 I've written a few articles following natural disasters. They all have the same pace. Urgent need and huge attention and outpouring of help as the tragedy unfolds.  Few using maps, so many areas where help is needed get little attention. In the years following one tragedy another happens and attention goes to a new crisis. Keeping attention and resources flowing five, 10 and 15 years after the tragedy is almost impossible.

That same flow of attention follows urban violence.

I've been reducing my paper trail and am scanning some of my news stories into my computer. Added this one from 1993, which is a letter to the editor written to the Chicago Tribune by Florence Cox, President of the Chicago Board of Education

I highlighted one section where she says:

"We must begin to realize that the needs of Chicago-area children are not being met, and in neglecting those needs, we neglect our own future as a prosperous and safe city."

Here's another article with some quotes from other stories, showing how difficult it is for this nation to focus on complex problems that require long-term attention and resources to be solved.

The headline is, "Action, not apologies, would help."

When I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 one of four strategies was to generate more consistent attention to issues of poverty, violence, inequality, etc. drawing needed support to all of the non-school tutor/mentor programs operating in the Chicago region. I started using maps to show where they were most needed and where existing programs are located.  

I found another set of notes, with quotes I'd written down during speeches given during the 1997 President's Summit for America's Future, held in Philadelphia, PA.  I was there as a delegate from Chicago and as a Teaching Example exhibitor.

It starts with a quote from President Bill Clinton, saying, "This is the start of an era of big citizenship. The really important work will begin after my talk's over".  Click on the image to enlarge it and read the other quotes.

In the letter to the editor and in the Summit speeches, leaders are calling on Americans to become involved in solving complex problems.  The problem is, they have not made this call for people's involvement every day since then, and they have not pointed to web libraries and directories showing information people need to learn from, and lists of existing programs who need their help.

That's still a problem.

As I listened to Vice President Kamala Harris end last night's debate, I heard the same call for involvement.  I hope people look back 20 years from now and see this as a tipping point in how we solve problems in the world. 

I've tried to model what needs to be done, by my own actions and those of the Tutor/Mentor Connect ion (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present).  I've had limited resources to do this, but continue with what I have.

Look at articles in the history, archive, about TMI sections at the left, to see what I've been trying to do.  

I keep hoping to find others who will help me...and will help provide the consistent attention needed to support people and organizations working with kids in all places where they are needed. I invite disaster recovery leaders, anti poverty leaders, education and workforce development leaders, and others, to borrow ideas from my archives and my library and apply them in their own work.

In this context, the next question is "how much time, talent and treasure" should one be expected to commit to this war on poverty? In the speeches that will be given today we'll honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. The number of dead will be totaled. In the background will be the number of families and children changed forever because a parent was lost in 9/11 or killed or severely wounded in the years since then.

When we think of this as 100% sacrifice, how do our own daily commitments of time, talent and treasure stack up? I'm not in a position to say what the appropriate level of giving should be. However, I can look in my own mirror every night and feel good about my own efforts.

I'd like to find a way that more people were looking in the mirror every night and doing more than just staring at a pretty face!!

This week and next week volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs will be holding orientations and training sessions for the volunteers who will become tutors/mentors in the 2024-25 school year.  I hope this will be starting them on a journey that is intended to stretch their involvement beyond two hours a week with one youth, to a commitment that draws the heart, body and spirit of a growing number into the efforts it takes to end poverty by helping kids move through school and into jobs/careers, and ending some of the harms that I point to in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library.

In the program I led from 1993 to 2011 we promised our kids "we'll do everything we can" to assure that you're starting a job/career by age 25. "Everything" is a lot. It's unconditional effort. It recognizes the potential of unleashing the talent of our volunteers, their friends and families, the people they work with, and the people they pray with or go to football games with, in efforts to end poverty and provide hope.

I'm now seeing stories on Facebook from some of these kids showing their college degrees and the journey of their own kids through school.  The year-to-year evidence could not show this result, but our ability to keep kids coming back each year through high school, was a prediction.

Visit this section of my library and find links to Chicago youth programs. Visit their websites. Look at their social media posts. Learn what they do, then decide how, and how much, you want to help them. Don't wait for a proposal, or to be asked.  Take the lead. Reach out to them.

Our efforts to unleash and focus more of the talents and time of our students, alumni and volunteers are the best memorial to 9/11 that I feel we can offer.

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on social media and share my posts so more people get t his information.

And, if you're able, send a contribution to help fund this work. Visit this page.