Can’t wait to see you there!

We decided to give you a little preview of what three of our sites will be for Urban Renewal. Some of you will be going to these sites throughout the week of FYSOP because they’re places making important changes to improve Boston communities. Check ‘em out after the jump:

1. To demonstrate how skills help build community, we’ll be going to the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI). Since 1984, DSNI has brought in residents of Roxbury and North Dorchester to revive their neighborhood; they have been so successful that they’re the only community-based non-profit in the country to be granted eminent domain authority over abandoned land within its boundaries. They’ve turned the area around Dudley Street into an empowered community that residents can be proud of, and have shaped local politics into a vital part of everyday life. The documentary Holding Ground and its sequel Gaining Ground show the progress made by DSNI and the residents of Dudley Street:

2. To give you guys an idea of how social environment contributes to community development, we’re heading to Spontaneous Celebrations in Jamaica Plain. The organization started as a movement to prevent a highway being built across Boston – eventually, the land cleared for the highway became a park. Since then, Spontaneous Celebrations has expanded to include Girls Rock Camp to empower young women, art classes for families with disabled children, and other community events. They still help host the Wake Up The Earth! festival every year to celebrate keeping the highway out of Boston.

3. To help improve setting in Boston, we’re going to be painting a mural at William Monroe Trotter Elementary School. Trotter was started as a “magnet school,” meaning it was developed outside school zone boundaries so it could accept many students from all over – at first, Trotter was very successful as a magnet school (it even attracted New Kids on the Block band members Donnie and Mark, pictured below in first grade).

Now, however, Trotter Elementary school is so consistently underperforming that it has been deemed a “turn-around school,” meaning it has three years to improve test scores before it gets shut down. Entering their second year of this arrangement, Trotter has to adjust to new teachers, stricter regulations and problems from the surrounding community. To improve the conditions at the school, we’ll be painting a mural on the wall of the playground, pictured below:

We’ve posted two pages to our blog with additional content about what Urban Renewal is, how it’s affecting Boston and what we’re doing about the issues in the city. Check ‘em out when you get a chance:

Urban Renewal: Drawing Defining Lines

Urban Renewal: Boston Today

In the meantime, keep checking back for other tidbits about FYSOP, Boston, and Urban Renewal – we’ll be posting about three very special sites soon!

Because our focus is on how skills, setting and social environment contribute to community development, our speakers are all relevant to one of those aspects of Urban Renewal. We’re breaking our groups down into 30-minute “mini-panels” where students will get a chance to ask our speakers how and why they’re trying to change Boston.

What we’d like you to do is leave comments with questions you have for our panelists – it can be related to their professional work, their experiences in Boston, or Urban Renewal in general. We want our Education Day to be an open discussion about the problems facing Boston, and we want to include what you’re most interested in. Check out the information about our panels after the break, then leave us a comment or send us an email at fysopur22@gmail.com with any questions you have for our panels.  

Mini-Panel #1: Setting (Security)

This panel will focus on how security impacts a community, specifically with gang violence and graffiti. Our two panelists will discuss preventing crime on the streets with youth non-violence programs and anti-graffiti campaigns.

Mini-Panel #2: Setting (Housing)

Our second setting panel will focus on housing. We have two speakers from different housing development corporations which work to build mixed-income affordable housing units in Boston and use them to build safe, strong, educated communities.

Mini-Panel #3: Skills

The skills panel will focus on how teaching youth empowers a community. This includes not only the education of the public school system, but specialized skills that can help individuals find passion and professional development.

Mini-Panel #4: Social Environment

Social environment encompasses both everyday life and special events that bring a community together; this panel will focus on how the arts, both through performance and workshops, can bring communities together and strengthen neighborhoods.

We’ll have a full-length blog post for you on Tuesday, so be sure to check back!

This is a quick post of a video we found while researching Urban Renewal. Majora Carter spearheaded a project to bring the first open waterfront park to the South Bronx in 60 years; this talk focuses on environmental inequality and how setting is a huge part of building a community.

We learned so much about the issue of graffiti in this particular area. Sergeant O’Hara explained to us how all kinds of property is vandalized from post office boxes to dumpsters.

A lot of this graffiti is filled with offensive or profane statements. What was really shocking was not just that it is all over the streets but even in a kid’s playground at Jackson Mann Elementary. Principal Tuite and Sergeant O’Hara said they have noticed that when they put up murals and constructive art it deters graffiti artists from vandalizing the work. There is a certain respect for other artwork. So instead of continuing to clean this wall…

…we are going to paint it! This project encompasses everything we love about Urban Renewal. It is going to beautify some of Boston’s urban space as well as enhance the place that community is developed. The kids will see this mural everyday as they play on the playground. What will we paint you ask?! Well, that is still up in the air but the two of us are having fun just imaging what we could come up with!

Disclaimer: we are not professional muralers….yet.