Photos of the Hood.
http://www.urbanventures.org/photo_hist.html
Some of the pictures are of kids playing in the neighborhood but others just show a very negative view of the area. Included in these photos are a photo of a House that had recently burned.
This type of portrayal of these Neighborhoods is not accurate - and focuses on the problems without focusing on successes. There are many areas in Central where people have invested heavily in improving the housing stock. The Healy Block is a good example of that.
At 08:04 AM 4/5/2004, Shawn Lewis wrote:
My deepest hope is that this post truly leads to some thoughtful discussion on this Mpls Issue List. Thank you.
Last update: April 2, 2004 W. Harry Davis: A youth center worth supporting W. Harry Davis April 3, 2004 Minneapolis has the chance to relive history. That's a very good thing.
The new Colin Powell Youth Leadership Center, planned for the Phillips-Central area of South Minneapolis, can revive the settlement houses that flourished at the beginning of the last century. Those settlement houses helped immigrants, minorities and the poor learn how to enhance their academic skills, improve their parenting, and help their children become good citizens.
I know. I was one of those kids.
In the 1920s and '30s, the Phyllis Wheatley House in north Minneapolis was the center of my African-American community, a place where we could go for education, recreation, music, dramatics and social services.
Now the Colin Powell Center is poised to become a similar hub for a community desperately in need of a strong anchor. This area has one of the city's highest rates of crime, drug and alcohol dependency, and domestic abuse. An extremely high percentage of kids in the area live below the poverty line.
One of the biggest problems in the area -- and in the entire city -- is kids dropping out of high school. Fewer than half of students in the Minneapolis Public Schools graduate in four years, and the graduation rates for minorities are worse; 77 percent of our African-American males are not completing high school.
We should care about these issues - and we should be putting money into this sort of project. My problem is this project will be run by Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation - and the question is whether kids who have different religious beliefs than UV will be able to participate in the athletic activities without getting proceletized. What will happen to the Muslim or Jewish kids who go to this center. Will they be told they are going to hell because they don't believe what UV thinks they should?
Urban Ventures should be seeking private funding for their project - in the same way that Mary Jo Copeland is seeking private funding for her youth center in Eagan.
How does Urban Ventures numbers for reversing this trend of high dropout rates for African American males compare to other programs that try to intervene in the same way?
Wizard Marks said on this list that the anti-gay article that got sent to Walt Gutzmer didn't happen. This conflicts with something she wrote earlier on this list:
http://mapnp.geeks.org/pipermail/mpls/2002-March/011664.html
WM: The "flyer", according to Walt Gutzmer and others who received it, was actually a booklet about the religious convictions of Central Community Church (what denomination I have no idea) which has a Siamese Twin relationship with UV. I never saw this booklet.
When I talked to Walt Gutzmer about this particular incident, he said it was a copy of an article in the Central Community Church Newsletter - and CCC at the time had the siamese twin relationship with UV - but no longer does. Jana Metge, former CNIA ED also talked with me about this incident.
The Minneapolis School Board has recent experience dealing with Urban Ventures - and as I recall - that experience has not been pleasant. Flyers from Urban Ventures have caused the School Board to reevaluate their policy for sending flyers home from non-profit groups.
Eva Young
Near North
Minneapolis
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Blog is up:
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com
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