Bed Stuy Program for Teens and Brownstoners
Barnabus Shakur was “raised amongst gangs, drugs, violence and other struggles associated with economically disadvantaged communities,” according to his own biography. And when a 19-year-old buddy received a life sentence, Shakur decided to harness his life and send it in another direction, helping other kids in Bedford-Stuyvesant to stay away from those gangs, drugs and…
Barnabus Shakur was “raised amongst gangs, drugs, violence and other struggles associated with economically disadvantaged communities,” according to his own biography. And when a 19-year-old buddy received a life sentence, Shakur decided to harness his life and send it in another direction, helping other kids in Bedford-Stuyvesant to stay away from those gangs, drugs and violence through his non-profit, Project Re-Generation. He’s gathered an army of such kids, turning them into Foot Soldiers, his name for a teen job training program that has kids “remove litter, leaves, snow, weeds, and trash from your front yard, stairway, and sidewalk” in exchange for a few bucks a week. Yes, they’ll do the backyard, too, if you have one. The kids can earn community service hours for high school credits and they take money management workshops, so they don’t spend their stipends all in one place.
Had no connections and did no manual labor growing up but I still learned the importance of working hard and commitment.
I shoveled snow, cut lawns delivered newspapers and worked as a janitor in high school. All of this is good manual labor. At the very least it’ll give them some experience in how to deal with people and what to do with their money.
It would be nice if this program could team some of these kids up with people in the neighborhoods in which they work to be mentors/tutors too. And these kids do need toknow that most of us — who may look to them to be entiteled — worked really bad jobs for minimum wages or less. Too many people think their kids should have to do take dirty jobs. Well, we all have.
I worked in a hospital on the surgical ward. Tough stuff for a 17 year old but the lessons you learn… I’m hoping to convince my landlady to give them a call.
MM- your name is being mentioned on the Dean St. thread. Someone needs information over there.
This is such an uplifting story. Thanks for sharing it, Lisa. I appreciate the efforts of every one of these beautiful people. What a wonderful way for them to feel involved in and part of the community and meet other special individuals and what a wonderful way to remind the rest of us the youth are our future and there is hope for all of us.
stoep@conquer – physical work also gives the satisfaction of seeing some tangible results at the end of the day, as opposed to the more elusive results of e.g. office work. Its not a bad place to start, and I’m sure many on here did start there. I know I did, in a grocers carrying fruits and veg around and cleaning up the rotten spill. Those 55lbs bags of potatoes were a killer when I was a scrawny 16yr old.
the discipline that work requires can carry over into other areas of your life. Janitorial culture? What, like getting to work on time? Doing a good job? Being polite? Our janitor is all of those things, so that would be a great foundation to give these kids.
Considering all of the bad press kids have been getting lately, it is good to see that some of them are making positive choices that help the community, and help themselves.
it’s kind of silly to suggest they’re being “acculturated as janitors”? did you ever do chores at home for an allowance? ever babysit for the neighbor’s kids? does that mean your parents were “acculturating” you as a dishwasher or nanny? this program is helping teenagers to learn the value of work and money management at least, and probably a lot of other things, too. not everyone has the connections required to get a schoolkid a no-work internship at a magazine or lawyer’s office, and not everyone agrees that those “jobs” are better than these for teenagers. MM is right – I bet these kids learn a lot more starting out with an organization like this.
Same here, G-Man. Like you, I literally “worked” my way to the top. And there’s NOTHING wrong with taking a few “grunt” jobs on the way to success. Absolutely nothing.