June 20, World Refugee Day
June 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
UNHCR celebrates World Refugee Day 2008:
“On June 20, we celebrate World Refugee Day. This year, events around the world will focus on the fundamental need for protection. For some, this means economic security; for others, protection is freedom from violence and persecution. On World Refugee Day, we will turn our attention to the millions of refugees who live without material, social and legal protection.”
To learn more about UNHCR and see what you can do, check out their DONATE page and see how your small change can make a difference.
June 13, 2008 Weekend Challenge - Donate A Phone®
June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
So how many of you have old cell phones sitting in a drawer? What about your brothers or sisters? Neighbors? Cousins? What about your best friends sisters boyfriend? You get the picture. For me, I know I have two.
Why are they just sitting in my drawer taking up space and collecting dust? Well, I’m done with them. I received an email from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence yesterday letting me know about their 2008 National Conference. I spent some time around the site and the Donate a Phone Program jumped out at me. They describe it as:
NCADV has partnered with The Wireless Foundation for over seven years through the CALL TO PROTECT program which was created to provide victims of domestic violence who may encounter emergency situations with free cell phones for that use. The collection of deactivated cell and wireless phones for this purpose has literally saved hundreds of lives over the course of our partnership. In addition to phones being distributed for emergency use, proceeds from the sale of phones not utilized for emergency use help fund agencies that work to end violence in the home, such as NCADV.
So my challenge to you is to go find as many phones as you can get your hands on. Make sure the phone is deactivated, is turned off, and has a battery before mailing it off.
Sound like an easy plan?
Well, I made it even easier. You can download a free mailing label and send it on its way this weekend. Don’t forget to ask your friends and family too!
Have a great weekend.
Let’s Open Our Eyes…
May 13, 2008 | 1 Comment
The Children Caught in the Middle
April 28, 2008 | 4 Comments
There are over half a million children in the foster care system in the United States today and I am partially to blame. As a board member of SCAN (Stop Child Abuse Now) I know that our organization, through the DSS and courts, is responsible for making recommendations that sometimes call for removing endangered children from their family members.
I can’t imagine anything more frightening to a child than being taken from their family and placed in a home with total strangers. Despite the abuse, most children desperately want to stay with their natural family. However, over 40% of children in foster care are with non-family members.
A very close friend of mine has been a foster child his whole life. Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, he lived with a couple he still calls his parents after 46 years yet they never adopted him because he was their source of income. Some of his stories would make you cry; not just because they are tough to hear, but because you realize that even the little morsels of care he received made him grateful. He defends them to this day despite it all.
Thankfully, most foster parents provide a loving safe haven for children. According to the non-profit organization FosterClub, abuse is the number one social concern among teens in the U.S. Clearly a foster home offers a sense of protection. But, beyond the fear of abuse, how do foster children cope with the typical struggles that go along with growing up?
Thanks to organizations like FosterClub, there are wonderful resources available for foster children. FosterClub is a non-profit organization created to “provide encouragement, motivation, information, education, and benefits for foster youth.” Their 3 websites: FosterClub.com, FosterClub.org and Fyi3.com were created for a place for kids to got to ask questions, learn about other successful foster youth, share opinions about their own foster experiences, get recognition and support for overcoming obstacles, enter contests and more according to their website.
They also provide publications to help the youth, events especially for the youth, and even an outreach program where foster kids can work with child welfare professionals to develop effective ways to communicate wtih foster children.
FosterClub.com servers as their primary communication tool with youth and is a “hub of information related to foster care, including articles written by young people..message boards, contests and even biographies of famous people who grew up in foster care. It’s youth-friendly, interactive, and available 24/7″.
FYI3.com is a website designed for youth preparing to transition out of foster care. It offers an incredible array of resources to help the youth become independent.
FosterClub.org is their website designed for adults; particularly those who support and care for young people in foster care.
In a world where foster youth may feel different, alone or isolated, it is so important for them to know there are such great resources available just for them.
Want to learn more about how foster care works:
How Does the Child Welfare System Work?
http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/factsheets/cpswork.cfm
A Child’s Journey Through the Child Welfare System
http://pewfostercare.org/docs/index.php?DocID=24
How it Works: The Foster Care System
http://people.howstuffworks.com/foster-care.htm
A Family’s Guide to the Child Welfare System
http://www.cwla.org/childwelfare/familyguide.htm
Foster Care Glossary of Terms
http://www.fosterclub.com/fostercareFacts/glossary.cfm
Foster Care Questions & Answers for Youth
http://www.fosterclub.com/fostercareFacts/QA.cfm
The Cradle to Grave Pipeline
April 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
People often ask “What’s wrong with our children?” Children having children. Children killing children. Children killing others. Children killing themselves. Children roaming streets alone or in gangs all day and night. Children floating through life like driftwood on a beach. Children addicted to tobacco and alcohol and heroin and cocaine and pot, drinking and drugging themselves to death to escape reality. Children running away from home and being thrown away or abused and neglected by parents. Children being locked up in jails with adult criminal mentors or all alone. Children bubbling with rage and crushed by depression.
The answer is that we adults are what’s wrong with our children. Parents letting children raise themselves or be raised by television or the Internet. Children being shaped by peers and gangs and foul mouth rappers instead of parents, grandparents and kin. Children roaming the streets because there’s nobody at home or paying enough attention. Children going to drug houses that are always open instead of to school houses and church houses, mosques and temples that are too often closed. Children seeing adults take and sell drugs and be violent to each other and to them. Adults making promises we don’t keep and preaching what we don’t practice. Adults telling children to control themselves while slapping and spanking. Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating in our homes, offices and public life. Adults telling children not to be violent while marketing and glorifying violence and tolerating gun saturated war zones in communities all across our land. Adults telling children to be healthy while selling them junk food and addicting them to smoke and drink and careless sex.
There is a crisis facing our children today. The Children’s Defense Fund has released a report documenting America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline, the path by which the chances of an individual one day ending up in prison can be predicted based on factors present in his or her childhood, which make that child much more likely to end up incarcerated as an adult. This is an urgent national crisis at the intersection of poverty and race that puts Black boys at a one in three lifetime risk of going to jail, and Latino boys at a one in six lifetime risk of the same fate.
Tens of thousands of children and teens are sucked into the Pipeline each year. Poverty is the largest driving force of the Cradle to Prison Pipeline crisis. In Texas, among all children, 1 in 4 (24.9 percent or 1,548,069) was poor. A baby is born poor every five minutes in the state:
- A Black baby is born poor every 32 minutes.
- A Latino baby is born poor every 7 minutes.
- A White, non-Latino baby is born poor every 33 minutes.
- An Asian baby is born poor every 9 hours.
- An American Indian/Alaska Native baby is born poor every 20 hours.
Other factors that significantly impact the odds of a child entering the Cradle to Prison Pipeline include lack of early childhood education, poor education received later, disadvantaged health care, experienced violence, and simply being a person of color.
It’s time for America to become America. The Cradle to Prison Pipeline crisis can be reduced to one simple fact: The United States of America is not a level playing field for all children and our nation does not value and protect all children’s lives equally. As parents, adults, citizens and leaders we must examine ourselves regularly to determine whether we are contributing to the crisis our children face or to the solutions they urgently need. And if we are not a part of the solution, we are a part of the problem and need to do better. Before we can pull up the moral weeds of violence, materialism and greed in our society and world that are strangling so many of our children, we must pull up the moral weeds in our own homes, backyards, neighborhoods, institutions and public policies.
You can download the entire report HERE.
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