Friday, August 27, 2010

Surfing- August 22, 2010

Friday's Follow-Up

Tuesday with Mentor & Mentee- Albert & Juan Pablo
Read about what Juan Pablo wants to thank Albert for.

Surfing - August 22, 2010
Check out the pictures from our last surfing session.

It's been a slow week for YMC's blog but stay posted!

Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- Albert & Juan Pablo

"I would like thank my mentor for taking me to fun places and talking to me. He showed me he cared when he talked to me about my school. In this program they showed me to speak up and to work more. I love this program because they talk about nice stuff".

-Juan Pablo

Friday, August 20, 2010

Friday's Follow-Up

In America, the Land of No Redemption
Read Tony's blog about how the struggle continues for two of the men who are a part of our community.

Shout! Factory- Trust & Secrets

Check out the pictures from our last Shout! mentoring session.

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- Ludpitka and Sarah
Read what Ludpitka wants to thank Sarah for.

Programs Don't Change People, Relationships Do
Learn more about LA's GRYD program and potential ways to improve its evaluation.

Its Friday!! Yay!!!
Take the time to appreciate those around you.

Agueda

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Programs Don't Change People, Relationships Do

Follow The Gang Money: Part One

In 2008, the city of Los Angeles decided to move all the cities gang money under one roof and this program was called Gang Reduction Youth Development (GRYD). The program targeted youth from areas of Los Angeles that were considered to be more gang intensive. The programs provided by GRYD fall into two categories: prevention and intervention. The intervention programs are geared towards 10-15 year olds who are at high-risk of joining a gang while the prevention programs target teenagers and young adults who are already in gangs, strongly affiliated with one, or part of a tagging crew. The programs provide things such as job training, mentoring , and/or counseling for the youth.

In order to “qualify” for the programs, youth must take the Youth Services Eligibility Tool (YSET). This tool asks the youth extremely personal and incriminating questions regarding their past drug involvement, criminal history, family history, etc. Experts from USC who developed this tool, concluded that a young person must display a combination of four or more risk factors (i.e. home life, past trauma, drug use, and general mental health) in order to qualify for prevention services. The problem with such a tool is that the individual taking the assessment tool must be willing to be open and honest with such sensitive information. How many times have you asked a teenager a question and they have lied? Teens lie; it’s a fact and why wouldn’t they lie about such topics when a stranger or social worker is administering this assessment? Now the question is, how many of the young people who did not qualify for services truly not quality or were too embarrassed, ashamed, or angry to share the correct information?

Not only are there issues with the way the young people are selected but there are also issues with the overall results of the GRYD program. Many worry that millions of dollars are being spent on a program that may not be any significant positive results. According to Mayor Villaraigosa crime in GRYD zones has dropped by 10.7% over the past year but critics say there is no specific evidence that this decrease is due to the programs implemented, more cops, etc. The truth is, the city dropped the ball with a lot of aspects of the GRYD program. There are claims that money is just being handed out to people or organizations that are not providing great results and while that may be true in some cases, I can think of at least one organization that is truly producing great results. Youth Mentoring Connection has four mentoring programs for which they partner with Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. The funding received for these programs comes from the GRYD program.

The ways in which the lives of these young people have been transformed are extremely difficult to capture in conventional forms of evidence and data. Evaluators of the programs say that after participating in the programs, youth feel better about themselves but their behavior does not improve. Such “observations” are the difficult ones for me to process because the ways in which such conclusions are drawn are unclear. One program is not going to rid a young person of the harsh realities they must face every day which can lead them to embrace certain behaviors for survival purposes. What a program can do is begin to awaken the young people so they can look past the gangs and violent behavior that surrounds them. Evaluators should not only attend the mentoring sessions that YMC has at Rio Park in North East Los Angeles to get the evidence they need but maybe they should also allow the people who actually implement the programs determine what changes they have seen in the young people. The youth will not open up about the ways they’re mind set, attitudes, or feelings have changed with someone they do not feel safe with. In the programs we do, we create a community and a safe space for the youth to feel safe. At our family nights or closure sessions these young people talk about how much their mentors and staff have positively influenced them and how they have changed. Beyond that, staff gets to know these young people and their stories which allows them to know who really is not associating themselves with certain crews or gangs, who is no longer doing drugs or has cut back, etc. Ultimately, the people who really get to see the changes in these young people are the mentors, staff, and families; not the evaluators.

The difficulty in trying to capture these results in a “study” is tremendous. I believe that academics and researchers need to find better ways to connect theory to practice. A simple collaboration between academics (in this case USC) and organizations who actually do the work is not enough. While academia and action are both equally important in the social justice movement, the roll of an academic in action needs to be embraced. It is not enough to have a professor do research and gain information from reliable sources who are the ones on the ground doing the work; academics must embrace the fact that many things can be lost in translation without first hand work experience. People on all sides of the movement like legislatures, educators, organizers, academics, school administrators etc must have experience in working with the target population. How else will we humanize the process and results? We CANNOT expect young people to “change” because of a program; we must build the connections, relationships, and support systems that will foster such results.

My life’s work is to truly be an academic in action: a person who can connect to the people who the change must come for while also consistently tying those connections and realities to her research and innovative methods and ways to continue to improve our communities.

Agueda

It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
 
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- Sarah & Ludpitka

"I want to thank you for a lot of things. You have become really special to me. I love you Sarah. But more importantly you believe in me and that makes me really happy. You did a lot of things that let me know you cared. You showed up to every session, you text me, and spent time with me. You make me laugh a lot, and you are funny! In this program I learned how to be more confident. By being more confident I can lead a happy life and be a better woman".
-Ludpitka

It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
 
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Shout! Factory - Trust & Secrets


During this mentoring session at Shout! Factory a space was created to foster trust and openness within the group. The youth had an opportunity to share things they may not have otherwise. The matches also took part in activities such as trust walk and trust fall; both of which required them to trust in another individual or in a group.

It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
 
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Monday, August 16, 2010

In America, the Land of No Redemption...

...two men find inner freedom

I am writing this prior to leaving for an annual mentoring conference that I attend in Mendocino every summer. We were to bring four men and three of our youth. I say “were” because we are down to just me and Free (YMC staff) along with the youth. Two of our little party cannot attend now because of their unique relationship with the State of Calif.  These are men who got into trouble in the past, did their time and are now out trying to make this a better world. They both volunteer with YMC and work to create healing, keep youngsters from following the gang life or doing other things that would get them in trouble or ruin their lives. Talk about rehabilitation!  

We invited them to join us on this trip because this particular retreat, headed up by Michael Meade (a man that I consider a mentor) provides the kind of experience, deep work and training that is not available anywhere else. I was excited that this might bring their work with youth to another level.
 
So, here’s what happened:
 
Maurice works for another youth service organization and is volunteering to mentor one of our young men at YMC with great results. Ten days ago we inexplicably lost contact with him. Last Friday he resurfaces to tell us he had been locked up. Did he slip? Did his past catch up to him again? Did he do something stupid to get into trouble with the law again?  Nope, his crime was walking home from work!  You see, Maurice’s agency hires ex- gang bangers to give them a fresh start, and so they can help keep others out of ‘the life’ as well. After work one day Maurice and a co-worker were leaving work to walk home and were arrested for being together. Hanging out with other parolees or ex-gangsters is a violation of their parole. Doesn’t matter that they were just leaving a workplace that hires folks like them, which Maurice attempted to explain. Doesn’t matter that they are good men doing life-saving work. What matters is that a police officer had the power to take him in. Technically he violated his parole the second he stepped out of the building with the other guy. He is now on house arrest and cannot attend this conference that happens only once per year.

I would not blame Maurice for feeling incredibly angry, victimized or depressed. Instead he tells me that he is using this to help his mentee understand the consequences of living that kind of life. He philosophizes: “I didn’t become a criminal overnight. So, I guess I won’t become completely free overnight”.

Hugo volunteers time with Youth Mentoring Connection and works in Lancaster for the Catalyst Foundation doing work to “decrease the impact of unhealed emotional pain and trauma”. God forbid somebody like that could have any freedom of movement in our society. He was signed up for the conference with approval from his P.O….until he was given a new P.O. who decided to put him back through the approval process again and they revoked his permission four days before the conference. At the same time they are questioning his permission to live in his home and to work at his job. In the conversation with the new P.O. Hugo was reminded on several occasions of his status on probation just to reinforce that he has no rights, no freedom. Reminded that no matter what he does with his life from here on out, there is no redemption in the eyes of the state. 

These are two men doing life-saving work. If anyone should be encouraged to go to this conference it is they. During the balance of their time on this planet I have no doubt that these two men will save more lives than the policeman that arrested Maurice, and rehabilitate more parolees than Hugo’s P.O. But we have a system that simply does not believe in redemption. So, it is up to us to find ways to honor the redeeming works of men (and women) like these, despite the obstacles that will be constantly placed in our way by people given great authority over another human life with no training in how to use that power with integrity or compassion. Yes, there are wonderful and compassionate cops, as well as Parole Officers. But someone’s freedom to live their life and find their own redemption in good works should not be based upon the luck of the draw as to which assigned P.O. you are going to get, or which officer you will be confronted with today.

Finally, in an act that would humble me, Hugo (the one being victimized in this situation) begins to console me as I express my anger over the treatment he was receiving: “Tony, this is my life”, he said. “I’m just grateful to be dealing with this from out here and not in prison.” 

In the words of the immortal Bob Marley: “none but our self can free our mind” (from Redemption Song)

Humbly,

Tony

Redemption Redux
Good News: We leave tomorrow for our retreat and Hugo will be with us. Hugo is resourceful. He called several of us and asked us to phone his P.O. on his behalf and then drove out to see his P.O., attorney at his side. Before I could even make my call Hugo contacts me to let me know that they reversed their reversal. He can now keep his job, live in his home and go to Mendocino with us. Way to go Hugo!

Friday, August 13, 2010

Friday's Follow-Up

Inspire: "To breath one's spirit into the world"
Read Tony's short and simple blog about inspiration. Do you surround yourself with the best people possible? Or do you need to re-evaluate some things or people?

Surfing - August 8, 2010
Check out the pictures from our most recent surfing session.

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee: Vince and Fernando
Fernando thanks his mentor Vince for being a good pal and for giving him a helping hand.

Hope for Foster Care Students attending California Universities
The importance of a stable home is crucial to the success of many college students. Read about the help and hope that the State of California has given Foster Care students who are attending California Universities.
Enjoy your weekend!

Agueda

It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Hope for Foster Care Students attending California Universities

Students raised in foster care to get priority housing at California Universities
The importance of having a shelter can be undermined and forgotten by many. When we see a homeless person on the street we are quick to assume that it is their fault; that they refuse to search for employment or simply lack the will to better their life. When we are able to spare some change, are we pitying them or we being compassionate and thinking of all the people, circumstances and challenges that have placed them in that situation? It is very easy to judge a homeless adult whom we come across on the street but are people as quick to do that with a homeless family or young person?

Seeing a homeless family may strike different emotions in an individual because there are more people suffering, there may be children involved, and it is a part of our society to strive to have a nuclear, functional family. When people come across homeless youth it can be very easy to assume that they are merely punks who are rebelling against their parents, that they’ve run away and are choosing this lifestyle; but what about foster youth? Specifically those who have been emancipated from the system because they are now 18? Is it not the responsibility of the government to continue to support these young people in some way? Some of the barriers and walls that these individuals have had to cross are unbelievable and it seems so irrational to “free” them from an already dysfunctional child services system and expect them to do for themselves with no help.

I am glad to know that the state of California is now making more of an effort to help youth who come from the foster care system. It is remarkable what many have survived and getting to college is a huge accomplishment that not many experience. By having the public education system give year round on-campus housing to foster care college students is a huge support.

Overall, this new law is a step in the right direction. Hopefully in the future all foster care youth can count on some governmental support after they turn 18.

Agueda

It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
 
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- Vince & Fernando


"I would like to thank my mentor for being my pal and taking me to cool places, for example, the theater and bike riding. I really appreciated it. He showed me he cared for me when he asked me if I needed help with any of my science homework because I was not doing too well. In this program I learned to stay out of trouble and behave good".


-Fernando

Surfing- August 8, 2010


It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
 
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Monday, August 9, 2010

Inspire: “to breath one’s spirit into the world”

I showed up to the beach uninspired. My co-leader on the beach was not feeling it either. She asked me for help and that little act of connection woke up the purpose inside of me…service to others. By allowing me to help she woke up my inspiration and thus inspired me to offer my gifts to those gathered around us. The word inspire comes from the latin “inspirare” meaning “to breath into”, and it also holds the root of spirit. So,

Inspire: “to breath one’s spirit into the world”.

It occurred to me how much of the time I do feel inspired, and in turn I realized how much of my life is surrounded by sources of inspiration. So, my privilege to set the inspiraton of the day for the 120 people on the beach came from those very people. Eventually that led to a discussion about the people we surround ourselves with. Do they inspire us? Do they breathe life into our spirit by encouraging the expression of our higher self?
One of the most effective ways to influence change in one’s self is to change the crowd one hangs out with. Yesterday on the beach we had a crowd of 120 who got together to inspire the highest, noblest part of our youth and each other…and it’s always fun.
Rumi said:

Be with those who help your being.
Don't sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.
A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don't try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it's too late for all you could become.
Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?


Yours in spirit,
Tony

Tony LoRe
CEO/Founder, Youth Mentoring Connection/Urban Oasis
Founder, Boarding House Mentors


It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- Sergio & Bryant

"I would like to thank you for everything you did for me and the time you made to visit me when I got arrested. I knew you cared because you did a lot of things for me that you didn’t have to. In this program I learned to help others when they need it and to take care of the young ones".

-Bryant

It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.

YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Monday, August 2, 2010

“Let America be America again--The land that never has been yet”


"O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!"  (Langston Hughes)

Our good friends at HBO, along with hosting our longest running mentoring program also continue to create opportunities for us to experience socially conscious performances that provoke thought and inspire action. Last Tuesday they provided the opportunity for 50 of our mentors and mentees to see Laurence Fishburne perform the one-man show “Thurgood”, about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who prior to becoming a justice argued one of the most famous cases in front of the court: Brown V. Board of Education - The case that launched a wholesale effort to desegregate our schools nationwide.


…and it was working. Graduation rates for African American and Latino students were growing and test score gaps narrowing. However, over the past couple of decades we have been marching steadily backwards, replacing legally enforced segregation with economic and social inequities that have reestablished a quality gap in education reminiscent of Jim Crow days. And now with the election of our first black President a severe economic downturn, powerful undercurrents of racial bigotry are being exposed again. How will we respond this time? Can we ever reject fear and greed to finally become what we can be as a civil society?

Fishburne closed the play with a quote from a Langston Hughes poem that still resonates today with a plea to…

"Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lee,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
Langston Hughes
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--

And make America again!"

 
respectfully,

Tony

Tony LoRe
CEO/Founder
Youth Mentoring Connection/Urban Oasis



It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
 
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign