>> We're going right to the street corners to get this data.
Right? And what are we finding?
We're finding in our interviews, we're finding from our surveys, that the very people
that are dropping out, that are arguing not to want and valuing education are the very people
in overwhelming numbers, at least from our research, that want to be adequately educated.
I'm talking about guys on the street selling drugs.
They actually want to go to school, they want to go to college, they want to go to a place
where they feel that they're respected, they want to go to a place where they feel
that they're nurtured, where they feel that they're loved.
Right? Many of the children are coming from homes that are, you know, rife with all kinds
of issues, so they make sure if we're hungry,
they make sure if we're wearing the same thing a second or a third day in a row.
I think many of the children are grappling, particularly the boys are grappling with issues
around school violence, or other street activities
that are taking place within a school environment.
I think, I think many of the children are actually not being prepared to graduate,
not only high school, but also to enroll in college.
And when you take home those kinds of experiences, you know,
it keeps me up at night, I'll be honest with you.
Lots of night sweats, you know, I have trouble going to sleep at night, sometimes carrying some
of these stories, you know, to interview a father and talk about,
and hear him talk about what it means to be a father and lose your son, you know,
and to have an older man break down in front of you, or have a mother break down in front
of you, you know, we've got all of this stuff.
You know? We've heard all these stories.
To be there with a young man, an adult, you know, in his 20s, and for him to break
down crying in front of you because he doesn't have a job
or he knows he can't support his children in the way that he wants to.
But when I'm actually on the ground walking through the communities, block to block,
really speaking with some of those guys that's really out there doing X, Y and Z,
one of the things they really want me to understand and capture
through this project is also the community, the love that's in
or amongst street life oriented community, communities,
which is inside a larger [inaudible] community.
But oftentimes these guys are involved with caring for loved ones, siblings, in addition to,
you know, elders, parents, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, oftentimes, you know,
they play a real role with respect to organizing these communities, you know,
getting them out to events, you know, promoting certain positive things throughout the scope
of a south bridge or an east side, oftentimes, you know, and not to say it's necessarily right
or wrong, but we may see some of these young men paying rent for grandma, for auntie,
for the young lady, or the older lady who may be, who may have two
or three kids under her direction.
We oftentimes see them buying bookbags for the children.
And at the end of the day, very little change is created.
Not until we're able to create a scenario where children can be fed properly,
where children can be housed properly, where children can actually be educated properly,
will we really have an opportunity to see the change that we all want to see.
2009, three years before we had one male from this community that graduated from high school.
Jeez, that's crazy.
How did we even let it get that bad, you know?
So, I vowed, you know, [inaudible] to kind of reverse these conditions.
But I vowed to be here, you know, throughout the duration of my life doing any and everything
to make sure that these stories and these voices get
out to the people that need to hear about them.
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