Tutor/Mentor Connection NEWS
Linking ideas, programs and people to help inner city kids since 1993. A Program of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, a Chicago non profit organization.

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November 2008, Issue #6

  • What will it take for President Obama to succeed?
  • After the Election - Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference, Nov. 21, 2008 - Registration Open.
  • Use Map to Find a Tutoring and/or Mentoring Program in Chicago
  • Resources that any leader can use
  • Other conferences, resources
  • President's Message - New President. Same Problems.


Instructions for removing yourself from this list are included at the bottom of this email.

NOTE: throughout this newsletter we use a TinyURL to shorten long web site addresses so the links do not break.  We hope you find this helpful.
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What will it take for President Elect Barack Obama to Succeed?
It will take the constant, and growing involvement, of citizens, organizations and industry.  It will require the use of knowledge to stimulate understanding and innovation. This newsletter provides information intended to help groups support the growth of volunteer based tutor/mentor programs that expand the network of support intended to help inner city kids living in areas of high poverty and poorly performing schools.  If we learn from what others are already doing, in our own community, and in other communities, we can innovate better ways to solve our own problems, or use our limited resources.

After the Election..... November 21.  Plan to Attend a One-Day Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference at The Chicago Field Museum,  in Chicago 
The nation and our new president are now focusing on what happens after the election. Building volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs which expand the networks and support systems of inner city kids and families is one way to serve America and solve many important public problems. The May and November conferences, and all of the information we share in this newsletter, are intended to help a diversity of people and organizations connect and learn from each other, so that we break the isolation of poverty and provide connecting points in inner city neighborhoods for hope and opportunity.  See the conference goals and agenda at http://www.tutormentorconference.org . Registration is open and space is limited.  We hope you'll attend.  View May 2008 Conference Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvdLueMBV24

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We see Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Program as islands where a wide variety of short, and long-term connections can be made between inner city youth and families and with resources from beyond high poverty neighborhoods.   Visit the Chicago Program Links at  http://tinyurl.com/2k227y and you can browse web sites of nearly 200 organizations who offer various forms of tutoring/mentoring in the Chicago region. Some of these web sites do a great job of sharing information that other programs can borrow to support their own volunteer recruitment and training. 

President-Elect Obama has issued a call to service.  If you are a business, church, foundation, or an individual volunteer looking to find a place to get involved, as a volunteer or donor, these links are intended to help you choose which program in Chicago you might want to support with time, talent or dollars, based on what part of the city the programs are located in and where you live or work.  If you are from another city, the T/MC web site has links to many search engines that help you locate different tutoring/mentoring programs and national resources for volunteer based mentoring.

As we head for the year-end holidays, every one of these organizations is searching for cash donations to help them extend their operations into 2009 and beyond.  As you plan your year-end giving, or your workplace fund raising donation, consider giving support to a tutor/mentor program in Chicago, or in the city where you live.  As we move through 2009 and the next four years of the Obama Presidency, use the information on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site to learn more of how your business, church, college or social group can help youth through school and into jobs.  

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Use maps to plan your involvement

No general goes to war without a map, and we hope our new Commander in Chief learns to use maps the way the TV stations were using them to provide election coverage on Tuesday evening. The Tutor/Mentor Connection has created a set of maps that we hope local leaders will use to build support for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in their district.  If you are using HTML to look at this message, the map we show is of the 15th Illinois State Senate District.  This map shows the levels of poverty in the district, the number of poorly performing schools, and the locations of organizations that provide various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring. 

If a volunteer or leader spent one hour a month, for the next year, browsing through the links below, their knowledge of education, high school drop out, and poverty issues, and of potential solutions, would grow.  As volunteers from hundreds of tutor/mentor programs learn from this knowledge, we increase the number of personally involved people. Many will use this knowledge to change the way individual tutor/mentor programs are supported, and the availability of such programs in the high poverty areas shown on the maps above, and in the map gallery at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com/2008/10/senator-reverend-meeks-working-with.html . Using these  maps leaders can create communications strategies that mobilize people to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in the entire district, not just one or two places. 

 

Resources that the President and engaged citizens can learn from in framing social engagement strategies that help more kids "be like Barack".  These are just a few of the resources available on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site.

 

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Mentoring Articles and Conference notifications on Tutor/Mentor Connection web site
These are a few articles posted at  http://tinyurl.com/2gqu4l

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President's Report - We have a new President. We face an old problem.

How do we keep public attention focused each day on the work of helping inner city kids stay in school, and connected to tutors/mentors?  How do  we turn this understanding into a flow of volunteers, dollars, technology and other needed resources to tutor/mentor programs in every poverty neighborhood.

If I'm the new President, "how do I provide this focus to every state, and every city where concentrated poverty causes many social ills and has a huge cost to society?"

If the new president uses the Internet in as many innovative ways to connect people with issues and solutions and each other, as was done to get him elected, we have hope for the new ways people will learn, network and collaborate in the coming years.

Our dream is that instead of reinventing the wheel, the new leaders will look through information hubs like http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and find ways to connect new energy with organizations that have been working on the front lines for many years, and even decades.

We also have a vision that others throughout the country will share this role of leadership, sharing the responsibility for creating change. 

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If our new President thinks like a General, he will focus on definitions of "victory" and provide flexible resources down to the troops on the ground, so they can use these resources and their own talent and passion to solve local problems.  At Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection we ask "What are all of the things we need to do to assure that the kids joining us at 7th grade are starting jobs/careers by age 25?"  We're only limited by the ideas we have and the effort our volunteers, donors and students will contribute to achieving this goal.

If President Obama embraces this question he will need to expands it to ask "how do we help every 1st grader entering school this year, be starting a 21st century job/career by age 25."

By creating web based networks of information that volunteers, donors and leaders from any sector can use, the President can encourage more people from many different sectors to use the same information, and the same maps, to focus efforts on a common goal of helping kids entering first grade in 2009, be finishing high school in 12 years.  That means kids entering first grade this fall (2008) will be entering 5th grade at the end of the first term of the Obama Presidency. They will be entering 9th grade four years later.  And if this President has created a battle plan, and an infrastructure to support them, along with a commitment to sustain this vision beyond the  Obama years, they will be entering college, or a vocational training program, or a job, four years after that.

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If leaders take these actions, it will help us connect inner-city youth with volunteers and learning opportunities at Cabrini Connections, http://www.cabriniconnections.net.
We aim to support this leadership through the resources and activities of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which was crated in 1993 with these same goals in mind.  If you would like to join us, attend the November conference, pass this newsletter on to friends, or become a sponsor to support our efforts, or those of tutor/mentor programs in other parts of Chicago or in other cities.  

If you would like to know more email tutormentor2@earthlink.net or call 312-492-9614.


Daniel F. Bassill
President
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Cabrini Connections
800 W. Huron, Chicago, Il. 60622
312-492-9614

Read the blogs at :
 http://tutormentor.blogspot.com
http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com