Social Impact Social Media

blac.media Named for Hiedelberg Street in Detroit The Hiedleberg project began with Tyree Guyton decorating houses in a  Detroit community that resembled a burnt out war zone in 1986. Today the project uses art to teach community children about art and the environment while instilling a sense of community. Through the organization's ingenuity they have engaged students and professors from Wayne State University to the University of Michigan and Harvard. The photo here is of artwork from Tim Burke's Detroit Industrial Gallery Working with children that walk past rubble, debris, crime and abandon houses day after day The Hiedelberg project networks urban vacant lands into art/play/garden spaces while teaching children the philosophy of  "art-as-life." They have a Young Adult Heidelberg program that is nurturing and mentoring young adults, 18 - 25, to become community leaders and nurture the...

Playworks is the only national nonprofit sending trained "coaches” to under-served inner city schools. They currently have programs in 300 schools in 23 cities and serve around 130,000 students. playworks.org Playworks trains adults in how to create, safe, rewarding and inclusive experiences at recess. These coaches then go out to low-income urban schools and train teachers and parents how to get the most out of learning opportunities even during recess. Coaches become a part of the school community. Playworks also runs tutoring programs and physical activity programs. It is amazing what kids and adults can learn in terms of leadership skills, diversity tolerance and apparently much more according to results of their annual survey of participating principals, teachers and staff. With coaches in place students come back to class more focused and ready to learn. For the 2010 -11 school year Playworks surveyed over 2,500 educators. Here, briefly are the results. 98% r...

In  a July 2002 editorial  published in the San Bernadino  California Sun Jane Roberts wrote, " A week has passed since the Bush Administration decided to deny the $34 million dollars  voted by Congress for the United Nations Populations Fund. Ho Hum, this is vacation time. Columnists have written about it and newspapers have printed editorials of lament. Ho Hum. More women die in childbirth in a few days than terrorism kills people in a year. Ho Hum. Some little girl is having her genitals cut with a cactus needle. Ho Hum just a cultural thing. As an exercise in outraged democracy, would 34 million of my fellow citizens please join me by sending one dollar each to the US Committee for UNPA?" That idea was the genesis of 34 Million Friends  when Jane and co-founder Lois Abraham - separately and not knowing one another had the same idea-- a grassroots effort, one dollar at a time to get 34 million American women to give one dollar each  to help provide ...