The Harlem Children 's Zone

Who are America’s poor children? How many children in America are poor? What are some of the hardships that face poor children in America? These are only a few questions that we can ask ourselves when considering children who live in poverty in America. Children face monumental hardships in our country because of poverty or the condition of not possessing the means to afford basic human needs. The economic crisis that we find ourselves in today threatens to cause a dramatic increase in the number of America’s poor children; however poverty in America has long been a crisis that has faced the children of our nation. This essay will investigate the previous asked questions and research

The Harlem Children’s Zone project used background data to describe the experiences of a struggling community, based upon the lack of sound health care, intellectual and social stimulation, and consistent guidance to bring about a change for the children and adults in Central Harlem (Grossman & Curran, 2004). The information that was presented provided an understanding of the social dynamics of Central Harlem (Stringer, 2004). The need to rescue kids from this community brought about the initial establishment of twelve interrelated programs that served over 8,000 children and 5,000 adults (Grossman & Curran, 2004). These interrelated programs provided background data that was utilized in Harlem Children’s Zone growth plan; therefore, the

The Harlem Children’s Zone is a community based education system started by Geoffrey Canada. His main goal with this program was to close the achievement gap between affluent and low-income children in Harlem and ensure that every student that attends the HCZ also attends college. His charter school, referred to as “ The Promise Academy,” is unique as it provides a high-performing academic program supplemented with a variety of social services including parenting classes, support system for former HCZ students who have enrolled in college, fitness programs, community centers, and an onsite-medical clinic. Children living in the inner city are historically low-performing students, because they are not worried about their grade on a test like

A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne builds a model for combating poverty by tackling it at the earliest level of perpetuation-in schools. Schools, Payne advocates, should be the first line of defense against encroaching poverty and also the most effective weapon to beat it back. Unlike most economic tools, schools should be fine-tuned and deployed according to strict frameworks. Payne identifies two types of poverty and list eight resources which makes one a candidate. The thrust is thus primarily on how to deal with poverty in schools and how to equip the students with tools and education

‘Poverty is on the agenda of the Every Child Matters framework, with one of the five outcomes stating that every child should ‘achieve wealth and economic well being.’ This means is it is important that children experiencing poverty have the same opportunities as their peers.’(CYPW, pg 186/187)

Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.

The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) is an exclusive nonprofit organization that advocates children. Founded in 1973, this organization defends all children’s rights, primarily the poor. Ms. Marian Wright Edelman first started CDF in Washington D.C. The mission of the CDF is, “to ensure every child a Heathy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.” (Taylor,1) This six week summer program is designed for children in grades kindergarten through twelfth grade. The objective of this program is to stricken the amount of academic material lost over the summer months. This program is centered on children in jeopardy of academic failure. Children living in poverty-stricken communities tend

Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy II high school is a charter school in the middle of Harlem, New York. The students come from areas all over the five boroughs and even New Jersey to become a part of the HCZ organization. The school promises that if the students stay in school they will graduate and go to college. Students and parents will go to great lengths to win the lottery system that allows them entry to the school.

The DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) draws upon promising practices from a national body of work that suggest that dual-generation programming is an effective strategy for breaking the cycle of poverty. Specifically, two-generation strategies that suggest integrating education, employment opportunities, and peer support for parents and academic and support services for their children will produce far more promising outcomes for both the parents and their child.

The series Untold America: Divided Chicago delves into the issues surrounding urban poverty in Chicago. It showcases various community members from public school students, to school district administrators, and other community organizers. Overall, it offers a credible and realistic analysis of some of the problems in Chicago and also provides insight on the ongoing work to alleviate and solve them.

This summer I worked in New York City at Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), which is a non-profit organization for poverty-stricken children and families in Harlem, providing free support in the forms of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, child-oriented health programs that serve approximately 13,705 children and 13,784 adults. The Harlem Children’s Zone Project has expanded the HCZ’s comprehensive system of programs to nearly 100 blocks of Central Harlem and aims to keep children on track throughout college and into the job market. The organization is made-up of about twenty two programs in total that ensure there are no gaps in-between one phase to the next. For instance if a student needs to take a year off before attending college, HCZ has created programs that will stick with the student during this time frame, in other words providing these students with a strong support group so they are held accountable to attend college in the future. The HCZ is “aimed at doing nothing less than breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and

The statistics show that the kids that have been a part of this program are less likely to be involved in violent crimes when compared to their peers. It provides these kids with a safe environment to be in where they have the opportunity thrive and grow into mature adults that will be active members of the society. The Harlem Children’s Zone helps to address the issues that families face within their communities in order to work on providing better outreach programs and ways to modify the problems that people are facing within that zone. They have almost 20 different centers that serve a little over 13,000 children and adults each year. As of 2003, HCZ had reached almost ninety percent of all children in the twenty-four-block service area

her research on the studies of Geoffrey Wodtke, a national science foundation graduate research fellow who’s found out just how much growing up in a horrendous neighborhood can harm a child and hinder them from attending the most prominent grade school of them all, High school. This unfortunate reality of underprivileged neighborhoods lingers over many young men and women today and have been for many years. These underprivileged neighborhoods consist of many poor, single parent families with

The Harlem Children’s Zone project sought to improve the condition for individuals living in a 24-block zone in Harlem; subsequently, “Penetrating the Zone” imperative became an element of the business growth plan (Grossman & Curran, 2004).

The United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, but yet poverty remains prevalent. Childhood poverty affects every aspect of their life. “Poverty is not having income for basic needs, food, medical care or basic needs and housing” (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 59). Poverty is affecting thousands of Americans every day, and it isn 't sparing anyone of a particular race, age or gender, leaving people on welfare, and without homes, or transportation. Poverty is a crisis that deserves attention from everyone, and it has many faces that are often not recognized