“Can you send me a Chinese dictionary for the Mandarin dialect,” John asked when I visited him in my role as Commissioner of Youth Services in New York City. Eighteen-year-old John was considered the best and the brightest of an elite group of young men in a leadership program at Rikers Island, the nation’s largest penal colony-20,000 males-almost all of them black or Latino, and over half of them under 25.
John did indeed merit ranking among the brightest; his level of dialogue and questioning challenged me more than my graduate seminar. The fact that he was articulate, engaging, 6’2”, and in peak physical condition, only added to the charismatic impact he had on anyone who met him. While John was not Chinese, he had developed an interest in the Chinese language as a gang member whose home base was Chinatown. John also spoke the King’s English, Spanish, and his native Caribbean dialect. John’s exceptional intelligence was so at odds with his incarceration for a most heinous homicide. Yet, John was one of 20,000 males whose lives were on hold, if not over.
The loss of human potential is only one image that stays with me from that visit. The other reality is the level of technology that existed in this penal colony-from the electronic keying system to the computerized records on John’s criminal history. If John had been a child at Rheedlen (AKA Harlem Children’s Zone), we could have spent months trying to secure accurate school and/or child welfare records. Yet, on this penal island of 20,000, state of the art technology exists to track criminal life. I witnessed this same level of technology when I visited One Police Plaza where one could plot where crimes were committed through Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Yet, I, in my role as a City Youth Commissioner, could barely get an accurate list of youth agencies in New York City. While I understood and supported police tracking for Public Safety, I despaired at the lack of tracking for Public Advancement.
The need was immediate: many young people could not find out about resources and opportunities, and we in government did not have accurate baseline data that allowed us to conduct a data-driven needs assessment and analysis. It is these images that drove my colleagues and me at Youth Services to conduct a citywide youth mapping process and establish a 24/7 New York City Youthline.
Consequently, 500 N.Y.C youth mapped the city discovering over 7,000 resources; places they, their friends and their families might need. In the Bronx, a pharmacy was viewed as a health facility; in East New York, Brooklyn, a funeral parlor was listed because in the words of the 15 year old Mapper, “Three of my friends were buried there.” In between these two extremes were the traditional youth resources and many personal stories of how youth view and are viewed by their communities.
Since 1992, Mapping has been executed in over 100 cities and rural regions in America with each mapping project always producing its own unique stories of the wonders and challenges of youth looking at their community. Over the years, the mapping process has been refined; an online open-source curriculum has been developed for students, teachers and youth workers.
To make the information easily accessible and current, the website ilivehere.info has been built with 21st Century technology. It will be marketed towards young people with a functionality and scope that resonates with youth online.
While you cannot guarantee all the outcomes for Mapping in a new community, we (iMAPAMERICA) know from previous experiences that there are some givenswhen young people, working with adults, look at a community block by block:
Some 11 years ago, a group of teachers and students gathered in a Philadelphia high school cafeteria to discuss how they would map the neighborhoods around their high school. It was a good meeting with both teachers and students equally participating. About midway in the discussion, a teacher stood up and said, “I like this mapping project, but I don’t feel comfortable sending my students to walk around this neighborhood. I drive here everyday and I see what’s going on; it’s just not safe.” Immediately, a 16 year old stood up and firmly and urgently said, “Wait a minute, how do you think I get here? I live here.”
What will be the “Stand up; ilivehere”, moment in your community? We don’t know. However, we do know that there will be a moment of revelation based on what your youth have mapped. Adults will be informed of how best to reinvest in building a vibrant community so that these Mappers will want to stay and be able to thrive as adults.
