And Geoffrey Canada knows how to save children and parents and communities.
I’ve written about Mr. Canada before – one of my Project 365 heroes. But I think this man, his Harlem Project and the incredible success he has had with rescuing children, educating them and sending them off to college deserves to be revisited.
Perhaps it’s because I just finished Canada’s book – Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence
If you want to know how to save our children, how to make our schools better, how to change, grow and heal our communities, read Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence. Then get out of your chair, get in your car or on your bike or even on your skates, go to the nearest school, step inside and volunteer to help change the children’s worlds.
Geoffrey Canada is the man behind the Harlem Project. His mind, his drive, his desire to help children, parents and the community made the Harlem project a reality. And Geoffrey Canada knows his audience; he lived in abject poverty, the son of a single mom in a neighborhood where value was assigned based on how well you fought.
Geoffrey Canada’s approach points the way to saving all the children who live in neighborhoods owned and operated by drug dealers, drug users, robbers, muggers, burglars and rapists — killers of every description. My take on his core thesis is you cannot change children who live in these communities just by working inside the 4 walls of a school; you MUST change the community, reach out to the parents, help them where they are so they can reach out and change their own worlds, one step at a time, one day at a time.
Working in one of these schools in one of these neighborhoods, I see “throw away” children every day. On a good day, these kids are raising themselves; on a bad day, they are being turned into mules, snitches and sometimes, enforcers.
I could stay home. I could turn a blind eye. I could be one of millions of people who sit at their table every morning and bemoan the ignorance, the violence the destruction being wrought in our communities and schools.
I won’t. I get up and go to work in one of these schools every day. I reach out to touch these wonderful middle school and high school children, talk to them. offer them If I can make a difference in the life of just one child, I have done a good job.
So to everyone who thinks this is someone else’s problem, here’s my advice. This holiday season, give a gift that cannot be bought in any store. Get up. Go to a troubled school. See how you can help!
These children did nothing wrong but to have the misfortune of being born poor. They don’t deserve to die – physically, emotionally or mentally.
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