On the Oprah Winfrey Show, Susan L. Taylor announced a call to recruit 1 million mentors for vulnerable youth. Why is this significant? Consider the following:
2.4 million Black children have an incarcerated parent
Source: All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated
In some areas, fewer than 20% of Black males are graduating from high school
Source: Public Education and the Black Male student, a report by
Schott Foundation for Public Education
60% of Black fourth-graders did not score at the basic achievement level on national reading tests in 2005
Source: 2005 National Assessment of Education Programs
We must act now to mend the brokenness is spreading across this country.
For information about the Center for Community Development’s Steps to Manhood Mentoring Program, go to http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/programlocator/chiprgs.asp
1 comment:
Mentoring does matter, but good mentoring programs require consistent funding for staff, space to operate, learning supports and more. There are too few good programs in most high poverty neighborhood, and too few public and private sector leaders helping us all get resource.
Schools starts soon and volunteer recruitment is probably top of mind for you and many other programs. I encourage you to blog with me at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com so we can raise more visibility, recruit more volunteers and raise more dollars to fund you and every other tutor/mentor program in Chicago.
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
PS: please add your blog to the web links in the www.tutormentorconnection.org site.
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