Make Social Change A Reality

* I am in debt. In retrospect, my undergraduate career seems in part a veritable mission to accumulate debt. Since graduating I’ve stressed about debt, worked a couple of undesirable second jobs to repay debt, and I’ve even been known to defer debt, allowing it to simply growl beneath the bed from the back of my mind. I have nightmares where bill collectors show up at my back door with pitchforks - the only consolation being that so many of my peers are in the exact same situation. This country is teeming with twenty and thirty-somethings struggling to manage educational debt, with a long string of people in their late-teens and early-twenties prepared to join us. According to the Project on Student Debt , a nonprofit devoted to the issue, the portion of graduates in debt jumped from less than half in 1993 to over two-thirds in 2004. Factoring in inflation, debt levels for graduates rose 58% in that decade. The average public university graduate now finds him or herself owing o...

It seems that there is always a shortage of teachers in big cities across the United States. Additionally, there seems to be overcrowding schools in these same cities. One example that I know of is in New York. Every fall, the newspaper headlines focus on overcrowding schools in low-income communities and the shortage of teachers in those same schools. Ultimately what ends up happening is that the schools stay overcrowded, the teachers under populated, the problem moves out of the headlines and gone until the following fall, when the cycle repeats itself again. However, this year, things might be a little different. For the first time in maybe the history of New York and public education, the poorer communities are not the only ones struggling with this problem. Upper-class New Yorkers are finding themselves being turned away from their neighborhood schools or being put on a waiting list for schools that they are zoned for. It’s rare the problems that affect the poor also affect the r...

I was never aware that Congress had a movie theatre. Nor that they show pretty damned good Hollywood flicks, until last Tuesday when I saw a Capitol Hill screening of the upcoming film American Violet , written and produced by Bill Haney and presented by the Justice Roundtable Coalition’s Crack the Disparity campaign. The film is part of the campaign’s month long lobbying of Congress to address the Crack and powder Cocaine sentencing disparity . American Violet is based on the true story of Dee, a young mother in Texas facing 25 years in jail for distributing Crack based solely upon the testimony of one unreliable police informant. Her community is systematically terrorized by the District Attorney’s “drug task force” using military tactics to cull plea bargains in order to redeem those guilty verdicts for ‘burn money’ from the Federal Government’s war on drugs. When Dee is approached by the ACLU to be lead plaintiff for a case against the DA, she accepts and begins the fight ...

I found the blog post shown below on "A Little Bit More", Idealist's blog series highlighting small steps we can take to make the world a better place . It contains a few links to resources that will help you learn more and get started on composting your food. Also, Matthew Reid, one of our volunteer bloggers wrote a post about composting earlier this year. Check out Matt's post and don't forget to leave your comments. Happy composting! A Little Bit More: Live Green, Compost! In my little Washington, DC apartment I had a small kitchen composter that sat in the corner near the garbage. At the end of every day, instead of throwing my food scraps into the trash, I'd toss my leftovers into the composter , sprinkle in a small amount of bokashi , and close the lid. "But doesn't that smell?" Not at all, and as the food decomposed, the composted waste made great fertilizer for my house plants. I also noticed that I was taking out my garbage far less ...

In 1964, then-President Lyndon Johnson authorized a preschool program as part of his Economic Opportunity Act. That program has evolved into today’s Head Start , which provides not only preschool education to children from low-income families, but also health and social services . Since 1965, the money invested in Head Start programs has been steadily increasing. President Obama allotted an additional $5 billion to the program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the hopes of reaching 150,000 more children . The idea is that when education and healthy living start early, children stay in school, stay employed, enrich society and save taxpayer dollars in reduced welfare later on in life. However, in 1997 the Government Accounting Office published a report entitled Head Start: Research Provides Little Information on Impact of Current Program . In response, Congress mandated the Head Start Impact Study . Under the Department of Health and Human Services, the resear...

A few years ago some west coast techies sang Cumbia and came up with the idea to bring together lenders and borrowers without the insidious over-lording of a big bank by using the internet. All things progressive went into the idea, no double-dealing middleman, no high interest rates, no big down payments, and (best of all), no dead behind the eyes businessmen. Nope, the point with Person to Person lending was to reintroduce the social aspect back into financial transactions by linking together friends, family, and people of a generally similar mindset so that they could tell their story, give a little and get a little. Well, when Person to Person (P2P) lending debuted it was seen as a somewhat far out idea by gushy liberal progressives who had no idea how ‘serious’ financing worked. But, to their consternation, P2P lending has only become steadily more mainstream. In fact, the recent death rattle of the big banks and ensuing credit crunch, has driven average non-far out people to ...

This post was written by Matthew Reid , volunteer blogger with the Literacy ‘n’ Poverty Project. A native New Yorker, Matthew now lives in Boston and works for a math curriculum development company. I was a teacher for 5 years. Prior to teaching, I worked for a non-profit organization where we provided scholarships for students to attend college. And even before that position, after high school and through college, I was a summer camp counselor and volunteer/organizer for an after school tutoring program. I enjoy working with youth and feel that it is my responsibility to pass on knowledge that I have to others. Recently in the news, there have been many ideas floating around about how to “reform” the public education system and what is necessary. President Obama said education was going to be one of his top priorities to address and “fix” the problem of both teacher recruitment and student performance. Now as a former teacher, I support the need to recruit better teachers, obvious...

Bilaal Rajan, twelve year old author, fundraiser and UNICEF Children’s Ambassador is going barefoot for National Volunteer Week to raise awareness about global child poverty. What's his goal? “...to inspire one million children to take action and help create a more peaceful and caring world. I want kids to find their passion, get involved and make a difference in the lives of others.” Learn more about this inspiring twelve year old, the Barefoot Campaign, or purchase his manual , Making Change: Tips from an Underage Overachiever , at www.makingchangenow.com . You can also see a video on YouTube about this initiative from Rajan himself. Will you join Rajan and go barefoot this week to help raise awareness for less privileged children around the world? Have other plans to celebrate National Volunteer Week? Feel free to share stories about your National Volunteer Week celebrations in the comments. This post was written by Chanelle Carver , acting Editor for Make Social Change A Rea...

On April 20, 2009, Mayor Bloomberg launched NYC Service - a program to increase volunteer opportunities for the residents of New York City including youth enrolled in K-12 schools. ( press release ). While I no longer live in New York City, I travel to the area for work and social events (or just to hang out with friends and family) so I was wicked excited to hear about this new initiative. While many may have not-so-nice things to say about Mayor Bloomberg 's leadership or policy that should not deter us from recognizing the excellent work he is doing for the community. Even if it wasn't his idea, the city needs his leadership to move it forward. After all, he is mayor! Here's a video of the kick off event in Washington Heights. For more information, call 3-1-1 or visit the NYC.gov website . This post was written by Chanelle Carver , acting Editor for Make Social Change A Reality and Executive Director of the Literacy 'n' Poverty Project .

It’s National Volunteer Week and this year’s theme is Celebrating People in Action . This week is about recognizing all of you who volunteer with your local nonprofit, who organize voter registration drives and serve food to the homeless. It's about all of you that strive to Make Social Change A Reality . Every year, organizations around the country take this week to thank their volunteers and show the community just how much they value a volunteer’s time and contribution. Without them, the nonprofit sector as it is today would not survive. So we'd like to take a moment to thank all of the people behind the Literacy 'n' Poverty Project and Make Social Change A Reality . Our volunteers live in all parts of the country and donate countless hours of their time, skills and knowledge to help us fulfill our mission. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We'd also like to thank our readers for being socially conscious and following our blog. It takes many to make social change...