Real Life 

Geoffrey Canada Inspires Trust Grantees

Kicking off The Colorado Trust’s statewide grantee conference in August, Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, set the tone for a memorable and meaningful program with a keynote address titled “Youth in Crisis – How Can We Save Our Children?”

“The culture for children today has changed dramatically,” said Canada, author of Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America, and recipient of the first Heinz Award in 1994 for his work with the Harlem Children’s Zone. “It’s one of the most toxic cultures in history.

“We are the most violent nation of young people in the world. Kids know kids who kill, have been killed, or have killed themselves. Kids today are bombarded by profanity and nudity, and they are taught to be consumers, use drugs, act violent and be promiscuous.

“We need to understand what’s happening to our children – especially boys, who are the most vulnerable.”

Canada grew up on welfare in the South Bronx and – after completing a graduate degree in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education – he returned to his roots determined to make a difference.

“There are huge achievement gaps, for minorities as well as white kids,” said Canada, himself a father of four. “The policies in our country are so corrupt and misguided… in some cases, we spend $60,000 a year to keep a person in prison. This is a policy decision to invest in something that has no positive result.

“That’s why we created a new paradigm for intervention at the Harlem Children’s Zone that includes a continuum of support and best practice programs for children and parents in poor communities. That means recruiting parents as partners in ways that are real and useful to them, by appealing to their values. And it means implementing a system of tracking kids from one program to another so they never fall outside the safety net.”

The Harlem Children’s Zone serves 8,600 low-income children who live in a 60-block area in one of the poorest and toughest areas New York City. The HCZ provides parenting classes, an all-day pre-school and a K-12 charter school, as well as tutoring, mentoring and antiviolence initiatives.

“The goal is to elevate the outcomes for young people by increasing the school day, increasing the school year and taking responsibility to create an environment where kids can thrive,” said Canada, named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report last year. “We also need to document and learn from our mistakes to improve the work we do and to create a new optimism among poor people in this nation.”

In closing, Canada shared his compelling poem “A Small Army of Love.”

The conference – INSPIRATION. INITIATIVE. INNOVATION. – brought together nearly 400 Trust grantees, representing work on a wide range of issues, from immigrant integration to improving equality in health care, preventing bullying, preventing suicide, increasing the health care workforce, providing safe care in hospitals and ensuring a healthy start in life.