Creating networks of purpose

I attended an eChicago conference last Friday where one of the presentations showed how youth in Skokie, Illinois are learning to use technology to become voices and news broadcasters for their community. Is this a school based activity? No. It's a library based activity.

This is an example of how teens in middle school and high school can learn to use art, video, computers, essays, blogs, theater and public speaking to get the attention of adults and other students, and to focus that attention on social issues important to their community, or to the broader Chicago region.

Here's a collaboration pdf that illustrates the role I hope youth and adults will take to draw more attention to strategies that help inner city kids stay in school and move to jobs and careers.

This show four times a year when it is strategic to sing the same song, for the same purpose. What we do in May to draw attention to tutoring/mentoring and help high poverty neighborhoods have more and better tutor/mentor programs, can lead to business, church and service-learning support in August, that helps mobilize volunteers to be part of these programs and donors to support them.

This is a communications-based leadership style that any youth or adult can embrace, connecting the people he knows to people who need help.

Two of the events on our calendar are conferences held in May and November. The workshop descriptions for the May 29 and 30 Conference are shown here. I hope you'll use your blogs and youth-communications to help us draw more people to this conference, or to web forums like this where people from different places can share ideas and stories that help each other operate more effective programs.