Harlem Children’s Zone
The Harlem Children’s Zone is an organization that resulted from the Harlem Children’s Zone Project. This project was a unique, holistic approach to rebuilding a community so that its children could stay on track through college and become productive citizens in the job market. The HCZ focuses on helping children, their families and the community. Geoffrey Canada, the CEO, has reworked the strategy. The strategy is to assist children by creating what they called a ‘conveyor belt” to take children and their parents from baby college to college. The HCZ teach the parents to care for their children as they prepare their children for success, and this is done at the earliest possible age so that they can impact the children when they are easiest to touch (http://www.hcz.org).
The Harlem Children’s Zone has several programs that are included within their Early Childhood, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, prep for College, Family, Community, and Health, and Promise Academy charter Schools programs. Another program that is very interesting to me is The Baby College. This program is a nine (9) week program that works with expecting parents and those who are raising children up to three years of age. It teaches the parents the importance of reading and it also teaches them how to use verbal discipline over corporal punishment. They also promote a program that they call Get Ready for Pre-K program. This program takes the children that will be enrolling in the fall to the Pre-Kindergarten program on a six week journey to prepare them for kindergarten. I think that this is really great. Another program is called the Harlem Gems. This program is for pre-kindergarten children. This program is designed to get these students ready for the kindergarten. This program has three sites. As you can see the Harlem Children’s Zone’s CEO and his staff are committed to assisting all children is reaching their full potential.
One issue that this organization has dealt with is poverty in the Harlem communities. This is one of the main reasons this community based organization created the Harlem Children’s Project. The Harlem Children’s Zone believed that the citizens in our country could not rely on the various programs that are offered to save children in the various communities (http://www.hcz.org). This program assists over 10,000 children each year and has even communicated with other communities about creating programs similar to the Harlem Children’s Zone. The Harlem Children’s Zone is winning the war over poverty.
From studying this organization I also learned that the Harlem Children’s Zone is also diversity focused which is one of the topics we discussed in our lesson for this week. The link for the Harlem Children’s Zone is http://www.hcz.org.
Reference
Retrieved from the Harlem Children’s Zone website http://www.hcz.org
As a whole Harlem Children’s Zone sounds like a great organization. It is essential to promote positive parenting skills and meaningful living resources in inner communities. These aspects help foster developmental skills needed to succeed in the lives of young children and their parent. Universally children coming from or living in poverty circumstances do frequently suffer the most when it relates to educational factors but gladly this organization is committee to enhances lives and assistant the well-being children. Providing positive opportunities for over 10,000 children each year is outstanding!
ReplyDeletePer your description, The Harlem Children's Zone sounds like an outstanding resource for members of the community. It is always helpful when families can feel welcomed by an organization and offered opportunities to improve their condition.
ReplyDeleteMy own research this week provided me with a great quote by Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education. "Quality early education can be a game-changer for the kids who need the most support. It’s good for them and their families, and for our country’s long-term economic success." (NIEER, 2014)
Does HCZ focus the entirety of their efforts inside the original community, or do they also provide outreach to other areas? It seems like there are many ways that this program could be translated into one that serves multiple cultures.
Thank you for sharing!