Thursday, October 2, 2008

A Powerful Force of Reckoning

Welcome Back! The summer is over and hopefully its warmth and carefree essence has brought everyone back refreshed, rejuvenated, and able to take on the task of...WORK. It is always amazing when people begin to see the results of their labor. There is a twinkle of excitement that allows others to know, human potential is always apt to be fulfilled.

We, the Officers in Mama's Army, have been hard at the task of recruiting and are training our Officer Candidates. The Rank & File sit securely at their desks quite unaware of what it is that we have in store for them. WE are waiting. We are watching. There is an incredible energy around us that tells us we are necessary and something must be done, by someone with as much objectivity as passion to help these girls transform their challenges into springboards.

This year is important. Historically we are on the verge of possibly electing a Black man to hold the highest office in the land, socially we are on the verge of transformation, people being tired of the status quo and the lack continuity between theory and practice and economically, everyone is....wondering. What will not change is the need for support, the need for connection that every human being is endowed with from the moment they become a thinking, breathing entity.

In spite of, or in addition to, what is happening in the world around us, we must help nurture and grow the children and young people who are among us. This is the task youth developers and after-school professionals, and social workers, and case managers commit to when they walk into their offices everyday. We, too are committed to that end. Our means may be unconventional in that we do not favor a deficit-based approach, nor do we provide service from and intervention standpoint. We operate in the spirit of prevention following the adage of the wise ones, "If you don't start it, you ain't got to stop it."

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