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Thread: This is a "feel good" story - a lesson to learn from the children.

  1. #1
    Gold Member Night Owl's Avatar
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    This is a "feel good" story - a lesson to learn from the children.

    BUILD Academy pupils succeed with lesson in civic activism
    By PHIL FAIRBANKS
    News Staff Reporter
    3/4/2005

    For the kids at BUILD Academy, some of the best lessons about poverty, crime and urban decay are learned just a block away.
    What better education can there be than the neighborhood eyesore that greets them as they walk to and from school each day?

    Tired of just looking at it, 7th graders at the East Side school turned it into a lesson on activism.

    And the first thing they did was go to the guy at the top - Mayor Anthony M. Masiello - with an organized letter-writing campaign.

    "The scary part," wrote 12-year-old Vincent Benton, "is it is right across the street from a school. Kids have to walk over that stuff and junk. I think the house should be destroyed or rebuilt."

    City Hall responded Thursday by taking Vincent's advice and tearing down the subject of his ire - a vacant, run-down house just a block away at 1432 Genesee St.

    And Vincent wasn't alone.

    Jasmine Moore, 13, wrote Masiello about the old tires, broken glass and trash surrounding the house and the impact it has on teachers and students at the school.

    "Why is this important?" she said in her letter to the mayor. "This is important because we don't want this affecting everybody."

    In almost every one of the letters, there was a plea for help, a request for Masiello to personally intervene.

    "My classmates and I have a problem and we need your help," wrote Gregory Treadwell, 12. "We need your help cleaning up our environment. There are rats, dirty tires and there is filth."

    The kids, with some help from science teacher Alan Brucks, succeeded in getting Masiello's attention.

    On Thursday, a demolition crew took down the house and Masiello was there to thank the kids for bringing it to his attention.

    "This is a classic example of civic empowerment matching up with public policy to produce positive results," he said later. "When young people get involved in quality-of-life issues in their neighborhood, they become better citizens and better activists."

    http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...04/1051557.asp

  2. #2
    moonshine
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    Just another example of people begging for government intervention.

    "This is a classic example of civic empowerment matching up with public policy to produce positive results," he said later. "When young people get involved in quality-of-life issues in their neighborhood, they become better citizens and better activists."
    No, when young people stop demanding handouts from the government and start taking responsiblity for their neighborhood there will be a better "quality-of-life". The government caused the problem and they are in no position to fix it. You're gonna have to do that own your own.

  3. #3
    Gold Member Night Owl's Avatar
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    I think you have the wrong idea of this story.

    That building was falling down for as long as those children have been living. And now because of what stemed from a classroom conversation that went into their learning community doesn't make it a government handout.

    Those children didn't ask for anything but to get the building torn down.

    This is a positive thing that was done, don't crush the courage of these children to make a difference in their community.

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