Poverty Reduction in US Cities. Long-term Leadership Needed

In today's Chicago Tribune Dawn Turner Tice wrote a column under the headlinge "A question of values and violence -- and a lot more". Read it here.

In her column she raised the menories of kids killed over the past 20 years, and pointed to the complex problem of poverty which contributes to acts of violence. She challenges what people who don't live in poverty have been doing over the past twenty years to solve these problems.

As you can see from the graphic, and from other maps and map stories on this blog, I've been calling on strategic involvement from all sectors of business, religion, higher education, media, sports and politics for over 20 years.

If you visit this page and this page, you can see how interns have created strategy visualizations to communicate some of the ideas from the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC library, which I've built over 40 years of thinking of better ways to make high quality tutor/mentor programs available to youth in more places.

This is one of many graphics that I've created to illustrate the need to create a map showing how we get from where we are now, to where we want to be in the future. In articles like this I've pointed to uses of visualization tools and systems thinking process to create a blueprint that more and more people might follow.

However, unless media point to blogs like mine when they say "do something" then most of the ideas I share will never been seen by others who might use them.

This graphic is included in this article I wrote during Easter week. I've written more than 1000 articles since 2005, all focused on connecting people who could help with places where help is needed.

Writers working for the Tribune and other major media have a greater audience than I do. If they would just end their articles pointing to places where their readers can find more information, and find places to engage in LEARNING about problems and solutions, they would be doing more to solve the problem than by the occasional full page editorial saying we need to do more.

If youth from different tutor/mentor programs, schools and organizations like Mikva Challenge are creating strategy maps and pointing to online libraries and strategies that adults need to develop, I think the media will be compelled to give them attention, which in the end will provide more consistent focus on the problems we face, and the need for everyone to be part of the solution.