Lives Matter, Children Matter, Education Matters, Women Matter, Civility Matters...

 

Our board is comprised mainly of Chicago based-residents but everyone of us at the Utopia Connect Foundation have faced the hard reality of the plight of our community here in Chicago and are daily engaged in serving in various capacities that will affect change. We also draw the correlation to the direct impact environment, good role models, available parenting, safety, equitable education, healthcare, and access to housing and food plays on developing healthy communities. In some areas of Chicago we sense the contrary to the healthy communities we envision in the chart below, and instead, sense hopelessness and dejection as we hear of the senseless killings that have almost become a way of life. We sit within the pseudo safety of our homes and ponder on what can we do and how can we change this dismal trajectory for children and their families in Chicago. We acknowledge that no one is truly safe until stray bullets and violence cease. For us, it is not sufficient to move out of the city or turn a blind eye on the problem. We want to help change a value system. We certainly recognize that it cannot be done single handedly or in a vacuum and the most significant element in affecting long-term change is to engage the very people who are most impacted; allowing them to own the problem and become a part of the solution. As an organization we can vision and attempt to implement that vision but we MUST engage the people within those communities and change values and behaviors if we are ever going to see long-term change.

 

Much of the research done by some of the leading researchers suggests that the social environment shapes behaviors and outcomes. In its article, Community Change, The Annie E. Casey Foundation notes, "The communities where children live can have a significant impact on where they go and what they do in life. Kids in high poverty communities often experience harmful levels of stress from exposure to crime, frequent moves and lack of access to resources-good schools, medical care, safe outdoor spaces-essential to healthy development. They're also more likely to drop out of school and struggle financially as adults."

 

Knowing that if one lives in a run-down, crime infested neighborhood will only create high drop-out rates and ill adjusted adults, makes it no surprise what the present state is in many of our Chicago communities. What if we could change those scenarios? What if we could help to strategize ways to make communities cleaner and upkept? What if we could make resources discoverable for communities, allowing them to make healthier decisions? Maybe we could even allow children to grow up and not die before they exit high school or walk or drive home from pre-school?

 

There are things we can do individually and collectively to help change what our weekend headlines look and sound like in Chicago. To sit back and accept this as kosher is not good enough when we believe we can mobilize residents and others to invest and help create change. This effort is going to take all hands on deck and not just our government or the police. I think of a young man that I had the opportunity to work with within the last few years. He is no longer alive since he died, senselessly at 18-years old, the victim of an older man he got into an altercation with, who then ran him over with his car. I have always asked myself, "WHAT IF". What if I had launched our "Belonging to Something New" campaign sooner and had taught this young man some basic skills on how to "WALK AWAY". What if he had learned that he did not need to appear to be the bigger man on campus and his greater power could have been to kindly bow and then walk away? We often think it weak to walk away from conflict; but we have designed a few workshops and a campaign that is intended to actually make it cool, healthy, and actually empowering to walk away from conflict and become the winner-the true hero. Bigger than all else, these skills will save valuable lives and make our city a better place where children can grow up and lead meaningful lives.

 

We know that the work we can do as an organization will help to change a community by jointly identifying needs and jointly working to achieve change. We believe in the old adage that says, "It takes a Village". We are joining forces with Chicago neighborhoods with a particular focus on the west side, to infuse a different culture on living, learning, growing, and belonging.

 

Help us to create communities that look like this: We believe that working together we can achieve more than we can working alone in order to make Chicago a better place to live in that would allow our kids to live and not die.