Tutor/Mentor Connection
Hi all. I just found this group so I'm following instructions to introduce myself. While most of the folks I've meet on Classroom 2.0 are working in schools, I lead a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program that operates in the non-school hours (after 5pm on week nights) and connects inner city teens with workplace volunteers. This is called Cabrini Connections. You can learn about what we do at http://www.cabriniconnections.net . I encourage you to take a look at the extra learning and technology programs. By recruiting volunteers from the business community we expand the network of adults who help expand the experiences and aspirations of kids, and we connect them with adults who use technology, arts, video in their jobs and careers. I've been leading a program like this for over 30 years, starting as a volunteer in 1973.
The Tutor/Mentor Connection is a second part of the organization I lead. During 1975-1990 while I was first leading a tutor/mentor program as a volunteer, I held a corporate advertising job. I learned that you need to constantly communicate using mass media to support stores located all over the country. As a leader of a tutor/mentor program, I applied the same concepts to communicate to youth and volunteers. I also began to build connections between other Chicago programs and my own, so I could learn from them, and they from me. In 1993 I formalized this concept into the Tutor/Mentor Connection and we began building a database of all of the tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, and used this to help each program get more of the volunteers, dollars and ideas needed to be effective. With the Internet, our http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site now shares the information we collect with people from all over the world and many of our volunteers are people who live in different cities. For instance, the T/MC web site was built by a team from IUPUI in Indiana.
The aim of building this web library is to encourage more people to use the same information to support the growth of non-school programs that provide extra adult support and learning to kids who live in segregated, high poverty inner city neighborhoods, and don't have the same range of supports as youth in more affluent and diverse neighborhoods. By providing such information, we also encourage people to network, supporte each other, and collaborate on solving problems that each program cannot solve on its own.
Since many of you work with at-risk, and/or high poverty kids, I h ope you'll look at a resource like this as something that could help kids in your own school community. Since many other work with kids in more economically advantaged areas, I hope you'll look at ways you can teach kids to use web 2.0 to become leaders who draw attention to the issues facing kids and teachers in poverty neighborhoods, so the more people become personally and professionally involved in solutions like those demonstrated on the T/MC web site.
The Tutor/Mentor Connection is a second part of the organization I lead. During 1975-1990 while I was first leading a tutor/mentor program as a volunteer, I held a corporate advertising job. I learned that you need to constantly communicate using mass media to support stores located all over the country. As a leader of a tutor/mentor program, I applied the same concepts to communicate to youth and volunteers. I also began to build connections between other Chicago programs and my own, so I could learn from them, and they from me. In 1993 I formalized this concept into the Tutor/Mentor Connection and we began building a database of all of the tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, and used this to help each program get more of the volunteers, dollars and ideas needed to be effective. With the Internet, our http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site now shares the information we collect with people from all over the world and many of our volunteers are people who live in different cities. For instance, the T/MC web site was built by a team from IUPUI in Indiana.
The aim of building this web library is to encourage more people to use the same information to support the growth of non-school programs that provide extra adult support and learning to kids who live in segregated, high poverty inner city neighborhoods, and don't have the same range of supports as youth in more affluent and diverse neighborhoods. By providing such information, we also encourage people to network, supporte each other, and collaborate on solving problems that each program cannot solve on its own.
Since many of you work with at-risk, and/or high poverty kids, I h ope you'll look at a resource like this as something that could help kids in your own school community. Since many other work with kids in more economically advantaged areas, I hope you'll look at ways you can teach kids to use web 2.0 to become leaders who draw attention to the issues facing kids and teachers in poverty neighborhoods, so the more people become personally and professionally involved in solutions like those demonstrated on the T/MC web site.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on
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This looks like a very worthwhile exercise and effort. Unfortunately, I'd never be able to begin this type of work until summer time, but maybe.
But my poverty areas aren't inner-city. Our high-poverty areas are rural and isolated with little to no internet access. I sure will be glad to see OLPC really launch an "inside the US" poverty campaign... -
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Bassill on
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I host quite a few links to poverty mapping sites on my main http://www.tutormentorconnection.org site so that I and others can learn from what other people are already doing.
It think this also helps us understand the differences of poverty in different areas, as it is affected by population density, population size, cultural habits, environmental issues, etc.
Big city poverty has challenges different than rural poverty, and US poverty has differences from African or Asian poverty. By mapping locations, I hope to help create groups where people focused on specific types of poverty are networking and sharing ideas. Thus, big city folks talking with big city folks would be a sharing of similar ideas and experiences, while rural folks talking to rural folks would also be sharing similar problems and solutions.
Where we converge is the challenges of getting people into these discussions, mapping the problems, and harnessing the emerging technologies to help us brainstorm, share and learn from each other, then converge on strategies that might move us forward toward promising solutions.
Regardless of what form of poverty we address, or where we are, finding ways to harness the technology of learning and collaboration can be a benefit to all of us. -
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