Black Self Help Information

Memphis Cares

Memphis Cares

Our Call to Action
We are asking every man and woman to commit just four (4) hours per month for one (1) Year

Recruitment Goal
To recruit 6000 mentors between January 2008 and December 2013! Goal is 50% of the mentors will be African American men!

Who Should Mentor?
All are welcome! We recruit men and women (like you) to become mentors because they have valuable knowledge and life experiences that will benefit young people. All it takes to become a mentor is a committed, caring person, responsible and a good listener.

Our Missing Babies

Our Missing Babies

Missing Black children.

Ariel Community Academy

Ariel Community Academy

Philosophy of Education: Our philosophy is congruent with the Experimentalist philosophy which views change as an ever-present process in a student's learning experience. Experimentalism insists that curriculum is the subject matter of social experience and instruction is a problem solving, project-oriented process. The role of the teacher is to assist and advise the student, actively participating and contributing to their learning in order to expand and discover the society they live in and share experiences together. We believe that a child's education at Ariel Community Academy should be based on current and up-to-date research that is supported by the best teaching and learning methods.  Therefore, students should be aware of their own multiple intelligences and utilize a wide variety of abilities to demonstrate what they have learned. Curriculum: The Ariel Community Academy Integrated Thematic Curriculum is a working document that gives you a framework for what a students should know and what you should teach. The design of the curriculum is purposefully broad in order to provide the teacher with many options for planning and implementing individualized, small group, and whole group instruction. The scope and sequence is a grade level guide for necessary skills. The universal themes provide a way for teachers to integrate multiple intelligence instruction across content and program areas. The curriculum provides teachers with the autonomy to create authentic or criterion referenced assessments for individual, small group or whole group instructional plans. Ariel Community Academy represents a student-family-school-community partnership that educates children to their fullest potential: cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically. The staff is committed to being nurturing and responsive to individual student needs and supportive of families and community. Together our partnership will assist students in becoming literate participants and contributors in a global society. The three imperatives that drive teaching and learning at Ariel Community Academy are: 

       

Writing - Ariel students will be cross-categorical writers, able to use the symbols, language and strategies of all discipline to         record their communications.

       

Presentation Skills - Ariel students will be able to present their ideas and the ideas of others

       

Decision Making and Problem Solving - Ariel students will demonstrate a critical use of knowledge to solve personal and         collective problems.

Youth Advisers Bring Order and an Empathetic Ear

Youth Advisers Bring Order and an Empathetic Ear

Havoc was the order of the day at Bladensburg High School in Prince George's County.

Students were fighting, skipping classes and stealing cars from the parking lot.

Officials were stymied until they sought help two years ago from a national program designed to help schools by reaching out to troubled youths. Enter the youth advisers of the Violence-Free Zone, a program of the District-based Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, who let the students know that they were there to help them. The advisers also brought a stronger message: Control of Bladensburg was going to return to the adults.

"Kids can't be controlled by cameras, curfews and cops," said Robert L. Woodson, president and founder of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise. "Those are threats, and they won't respond to that. . . . The Violence-Free Zone inspires them to obey the rules by providing life witnesses to them [who show] that just because you are from a dysfunctional household or a troubled neighborhood, you don't have to be a troubled person."

The Violence-Free Zone, now also in Largo High School, has been praised by school officials and community leaders for helping to turn around troubled schools.

At the same time, the program has fallen prey to the budget ax. Funded by Prince George's schools for the 2006-07 school year, the program is in danger of ending soon unless $500,000 can be raised to save it, authorities said.

Community stakeholders recently gathered at First Baptist Church of Glenarden to try find ways to raise money to continue the program, which Superintendent John E. Deasy would like to expand to more schools, said his spokesman, John White.

White credited the program with resolving significant conflicts and behavior issues at Bladensburg and Largo.

More at the link.