Benefits of an Inner City Community Youth Center

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Recommended: Poverty and student achievement

It’s no well-kept secret that inner city impoverished neighborhoods produce some of the lowest test scores in the nation. It is not necessarily the children’s fault that they perform poorly, they are simply victims of their environment, one of apathy, greed, and a lack of academic importance in life. Most of their parents are not well educated, and as statistics show, they will not be either. Often, inner city youths, good children to begin with, become entrapped in a vortex of negativity stemming from a community that does not care to support them in a positive manner, and prominent negative influences abundantly tempting them, such as drugs, violence, and crime. Given the right opportunity and nurturing, any of these children could very well grow up to be professional college educated people with a wide variety of degrees allowing them to positively contribute to society and become as beneficiary as the influences they, themselves had as children. The problem is that there is not that initial stimulus of support that is so necessary in the development of a child’s life and long-term orientation.

I believe the strategy that would be found most lucrative to pursue with the $150,000 would be to open up a youth center in an impoverished city environment. There are several youth centers throughout America, yet most of these serve merely as deterrents to keep children off the streets and prevent them from being negatively influenced by some of the aforementioned temptations. The real key to success in these youth centers would have to be encouragement of an education. Of course the youth center would need the initial appeal of sports, games, and fun activities to draw people in with, but it would also need educational activities an...

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... and ensures that more of the children can get further educated at technical or even four year private institutions. Once they are educated and find themselves positioned in well-paying jobs it makes sense to presume that many of them will return from whence they came and contribute some money back into the youth center and perhaps back into the city itself.

There is a saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I believe this statement to be true, I also believe that inner city schools are America’s weakest link in the education system. I think that, given 150,000 to spend on the renovation and opening of a community youth center, a place where inner city children and teenagers can be safe and learn the importance of a good education would not be very fiscally rewarding. However, I cannot imagine anything being more lucrative on a societal level.

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