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Good evening.
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It is such a blessing to work
at the Harlem Children's Zone,
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an African American lead organization
that has pioneered the field
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of comprehensive place-based services
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from cradle to career.
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And that word "comprehensive"
is so key to what we do.
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You know, most interventions
focus on one piece
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of a complicated, giant puzzle.
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But that's not enough to solve the puzzle.
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You don't solve education
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without understanding the home context
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or the home environment
of our young scholar.
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Or the broader context of health,
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nutrition or criminal justice.
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The unit of change for us
is not the individual child,
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it's the entire neighborhood.
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You have to do multiple things
at the same time.
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And we have 20 years of data
to prove that this works.
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We've had 7,000 graduates
of our baby college,
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we've eliminated the Black-white
achievement gap in our schools.
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We've reduced obesity rates
in our health programs,
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and have close to 1,000 students
enrolled in college.
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We weave together
a net of services so tightly,
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so that no one will fall
through the cracks.
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And we've inspired global practitioners.
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We've had over 500-plus
communities across the US
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and 70-plus countries
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come and visit us to learn our model.
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You see, the problems of the globe,
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and the problems of the world
are not neatly siloed into buckets.
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So therefore the solutions
must be comprehensive,
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they must be holistic.
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And now we're in the midst
of a global pandemic.
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COVID-19 has revealed to us
what we always knew to be true.
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The poorest among us pay the highest price
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with their lives and their livelihood.
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And that's playing out every day
in the African American community,
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where we're 3.6 times
more likely to die of COVID
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than our white counterparts.
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We're seeing those health disparities
on the ground in New York City,
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our nation’s epicenter.
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And to compound the impact
of the health disparities,
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there's significant economic devastation,
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where one in four
of our families in Harlem
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report food insecurity,
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and 57 percent report a loss of income
or a loss of their job.
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But to better understand the work
of the Harlem Children's Zone,
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I want to share a story with you
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about a second-grade scholar named Sean.
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Sean is a beautiful Black boy
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whose smile would light up
any room that he's in.
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And when quarantine began in March,
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we noticed that Sean
wasn't attending virtual school.
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And after some investigation,
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we've come to learn that Sean's mom
was hospitalized due to COVID.
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So he was at home
with grandma and his baby sibling,
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who was his only viable support system,
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since Sean's father is incarcerated.
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Grandma was struggling.
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There wasn't much food in the household,
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limited diapers,
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and Sean didn't even have a computer.
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When mom was released from the hospital,
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their challenges deepened,
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because they can no longer
stay with grandma,
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due to her preexisting health conditions.
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So Sean, his baby sibling and his mom
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had to go to a shelter.
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Sean's story is not atypical
at the Harlem Children's Zone.
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We know Sean and millions like him
all across the country
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deserve to have everything
that this world has to offer,
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without inequality
robbing them of that opportunity.
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All the result of racism,
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and historical and systemic
under investment
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are now compounded by COVID-19.
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Our comprehensive model
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uniquely positions the Harlem
Children's Zone in the fight of COVID.
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The success that we have
on the ground in Harlem
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makes it imperative
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and it is our responsibility
to share what we know works
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with the country.
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We have developed a comprehensive
COVID-19 relief and recovery response
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for our community,
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that was surfaced from our community,
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focused on five primary areas of need,
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and already servicing
families like Sean's.
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They are the following.
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One, emergency relief funds.
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We know that our families need cash
in their hands right now.
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Two, protecting our most vulnerable.
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We know our families need access
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to essential goods and information.
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So that is food, that's mass,
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that's curated resource list,
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and public health campaigns.
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Three, bridging the digital divide.
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We believe that internet
is a fundamental right.
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So we need to ensure
our families have connectivity,
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and also all school-aged
children in a household
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have the proper learning devices.
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Four, zero learning loss.
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We know that there's a generation
of students at risk
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of losing an entire year
of their education.
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We need to make sure that we are providing
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high-quality virtual programing,
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in addition to having safe
reentry planned for school reentry.
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And five, mitigating
the mental health crisis.
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There's a generation at risk
of having PTSD,
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due to the massive amounts
of toxic stress.
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We need to ensure that our families
have access to telehealth
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and other virtual supports.
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We have six amazing partners
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across six cities in the United States
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that are adopting our model
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for their own context in their community.
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They are Oakland, Minneapolis,
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Chicago, Detroit, Newark and Atlanta.
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In addition to those partners,
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we have three national partners,
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who will be sharing our model
and sharing our strategies
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through their network,
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in addition to amplifying our impact
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by policy advocacy.
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We will have impact on three levels.
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Individual impact on the ground in Harlem,
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across a number of outcomes in education,
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in health, in economics,
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reaching 30,000 people.
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There's community-level impact
across six cities,
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again through our amazing partners,
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that will reach an additional
70,000 people.
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And then national impact,
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not only through policy advocacy,
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but through capacity building at scale.
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Our answers to COVID-19,
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the despair and inequity plague
in our communities
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is targeting neighborhoods
with comprehensive services.
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We have certainly not lost hope.
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And we invite you to join us
on the front lines of this war.
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Thank you.