Category Archives: Events
Get Ready West Side, The Ambassadors for Youth Academy is Coming!
Over the past two years, St. Paul Youth Services has held 3 Ambassadors for Youth Academies graduating a total of 105 people who are making a difference in the lives of youth in the community. The academy is an 8 –week program that provides adults in the community the skills and knowledge to positively engage youth in their neighborhood.
This spring St. Paul Youth Services will be offering an Ambassadors for Youth Academy (AFYA) on Saint Paul’s West Side at the El Rio Recreation Center (inside of the Paul and Shelia Wellstone Center) located at 179 Robie St. E. Saint Paul, MN 55107 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm on Tuesday evenings, beginning April 10th – May 29th, 2012.
From AFYA alumni, here are the 5 top reasons why you or someone you know should participate in the program.
- People should join to network and build community. -Sheronda Orridge, Payne/Phalen AFYA
- It teaches parents how to show love, without ignoring discipline. Part of the communications between parents and youth should include respect for youth boundaries that only can be found by listening to them. – Haytham Ibrahim, Payne/ Phalen AFYA
- Receive assistance in creating a specific plan to aid youth and money to implement your action plan. – Holly Bell, Frogtown/Summit U AFYA
- Be a part of hope and change and make a difference in the lives of young adults by building leadership skills and becoming a mentor. – Iris Escalera, North End/South Como AFYA.
- Learn fresh ideas and gain a better understanding of how different situations affect youth. Also come and learn about the resources that are already in place in the community that serve youth. – Holly Bell, Frogtown/Summit U AFYA
Registration for the West Side AFYA is open and WE ARE STILL ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS. To learn more about the AFYA you can visit the Ambassadors for Youth Academy section on our website. You do not have to live on the West Side to participate in the program.
Apply today for the Spring 2012 Ambassadors for Youth Academy!
Beyond the Bricks: Film Premiere Panelists
Introducing the panelists for the Beyond the Bricks film screening on November 16th from 9:30AM to 12:00 PM at Metro State University:
Nekima Levy-Pounds, Associate Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas
Nekima Levy-Pounds is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law where she directs the Community Justice Project. The Community Justice Project (CJP) is a civil rights legal clinic that is focused on using problem-solving skills, advocacy, and legal research and writing to advance the cause of justice on behalf of poor communities of color. Under Levy-Pounds’ direction, the CJP has tackled issues involving juvenile justice, criminal justice, and police misconduct to name a few. Levy-Pounds serves as a consultant to local civil rights organizations, non-profits, and community-based organizations. Levy-Pounds’ scholarly writing focuses on the impacts of the war on drugs on poor communities of color, children of incarcerated parents, and other issues that involve the intersection of race, poverty, and the criminal justice system.
Derek Koen, Director/Editor of Beyond The Bricks
A filmmaker with no formal training, Derek Koen began his career in January 2000, like so many before him, as an unpaid worker eager for the experience. Koen quickly gained a love for the film industry and subsequently earned an internship at Amen Ra Films East (Wesley Snipes’ company). In 2002, Koen directed his first feature length film “Ghetto-Fabulous: The Coalition” which chronicles the rise of an ambitious young man through the ranks of a powerful drug cartel and beyond. He has also produced a 23 minute short documentary with the non-profit organization Advancement Project, which was titled “This is My Home.” It focused on the displaced public housing residents of New Orleans fighting to get back into their unharmed units/homes a year after Hurricane Katrina. The film was used as part of a presentation to Congress to influence the passing of a Katrina-related bill. At the end of 2008, Koen directed Beyond The Bricks, a documentary film project and national community engagement campaign created with the goal of promoting solutions for one of America’s critical problems in education: the consistently low performance of black males in school.
Dr. Ivory Toldson, Associate Professor, Counseling Psychology Program, Howard University School of Education; Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Negro Education; and Senior Research Analyst at Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
Dr. Toldson is credited with more than 40 publications and over 100 research presentations in more than 20 U.S. states, Paris, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Scotland and South Africa. He has been featured on C-SPAN2 Books, NPR News, The Al Sharpton Show on XM Satellite Radio and WKYS Community Connection. Dr. Toldson is the author of the Breaking Barriers Series, which analyzes academic success indicators from national surveys that together give voice to nearly 10,000 African American male pupils from schools across the country. He was the fourth recipient of the prestigious Dubois Fellowship from the US Department of Justice He has held visiting academic appointments at Emory University, Drexel University and Morehouse School of Medicine, and has accepted invitations to speak at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Columbia University, University of Tennessee Health Science Campus, and SUNY-Stony Brook.
Keith Hardy, Saint Paul Board of Education
Keith Hardy is a member of the Saint Paul Board of Education. This is his first term on the school board and he is currently the only black member. Keith has several major goals for St. Paul Public Schools which are to eliminate the achievement gap between white and minority students, attract more kids to the district, empower students to achieve and encourage teachers and staff to prepare our youth for a successful future. Hardy also volunteers, serves on the board of directors at several community organizations and has taught speech and leadership classes at many schools.
Gevonee EuGene Ford, Founder & Executive Director, Network for the Development of Children of African Descent (NdCAD)
Gevonee Ford has worked in the fields of early childhood and education for the past twenty-six years, specializing in program development, administration, and policy. He has been a teacher, trainer, program director, and community organizer. Mr. Ford is the founder and executive director of a Twin Cities-based agency called Network for the Development of Children of African Descent (NdCAD). The organization, which was established in 1997, focuses on community capacity-building around the needs of African descent children and families, specifically in the areas of literacy, adult education and curriculum, coalition building, resource development, and systemic change. His work on behalf of children has been recognized locally and nationally, including a feature on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Joel Franklin, Behavior Intervention and Diversion Program Manager, St. Paul Youth Services
Joel A. Franklin graduated from the University of Illinois – Urbana with a B.A. in Political Science. In 1991 he moved to Minnesota to attend William Mitchell College of Law. While attending law school Joel worked full time as a Judicial Law Clerk for Ramsey County Judge Edward Wilson. Since completing law school, Joel has practiced law in both the Criminal and Civil divisions of the Saint Paul City Attorney’s Office, the Saint. Paul Human Rights Department, U.S. Bank Corporation and at his own private practice specializing in the areas of criminal defense and civil rights law. Currently Joel is the Program Manager of St. Paul Youth Services’ Behavior Intervention and Diversion Program which work to keep young people out of the juvenile justice system.
From the Director of “Beyond the Bricks”
As was previously announced, on Tuesday, November 16th, St. Paul Youth Services will host a screening of the documentary film Beyond the Bricks.
The Director of the film is Derek Koen, who will be joining us in St. Paul for the premiere.
Some might wonder what motivated Mr. Koen to get involved in a project like this. Here’s how he answered that question.
I love and cherish the pure innocence of the many questions, interactions and conversations that I have with my two year‐old son. Often when I put him to sleep, tracing a finger along the shape of his face, his lips, nose, and eyebrows, I’m blinded as my eyes well up with so many emotions. It rips my heart right out of my chest when I think about the pain he will endure as an African‐American citizen of this world. I think about the unexplainable pain on the face of my 16 year‐old son the first time he felt the unfathomable weight of racism and inequality, in school no less. At first I feel sadness, which turns into anger, and then a deep‐down rage. That rage is piled onto the last incident, waiting ever so patiently to be unleashed.
I think about the world that I have brought my children into and all the obstacles they will have to face head on: prejudgment’s by society, potential mistreatment and even death at the hands of cops, hate, racism, and violence from other black males. Teachers and administrators that label them “at risk” because they think black children cannot learn, enabling them to internalize feelings of inadequacy, to be less than. I will not tell my children that this is the way it is, and they just have to accept it.
I made Beyond the Bricks because I want young black males to know that there are people who love them. People who know that they are very capable to do anything they are willing to work for. I want to show young black males that they can have control over their lives. I want people in their communities who they come into contact with on a daily basis to take responsibility and be positive role models. I want the people who are charged with educating them to do it genuinely from their hearts. Most of all I do not want them to settle.
Action,
Derek Koen, Director/Editor
