Part Four: Lack of Sustainable Income and Youth Violence

Help Us To continue to inform and empower our community please Donate. Get The Scoop Weekly On the Global Black Community and Southeast Queens, NY. Subscribe to Our Mailing List. Receive the Latest Events, News, Jobs, and Top Community Economic Development Stories Like this one Click Here | Reach up to 1.3 million people Promote

-------

IS YOUTH VIOLENCE AN EPIDEMIC THAT COULD HURT SOMEONE YOU LOVE?

Part Four: Lack of Sustainable Income and Youth Violence

Suggest one way we can help young people access the skills, training, and opportunities they need to become employable and build a financially sustainable future.

Rozalyn Shepard

Part Four: Lack of Sustainable Income and Youth Violence

Families cannot build stable futures without access to sustainable income. When people lack job training, employment, apprenticeships, career connections, and wealth education, poverty can continue from one generation to the next. Financial pressure can also increase stress within families and limit the choices available to young people.

A lack of legitimate opportunity does not define a young person’s potential. However, when young people do not see a realistic pathway to employment and economic stability, they can become more vulnerable to exploitation, negative influences, and choices connected to survival rather than purpose.

The Create Conversations Community addresses the lack of sustainable income through job training, jobs, apprenticeships, internships, career readiness, workforce development, and wealth education. These opportunities help young people develop the skills, experience, income, and knowledge needed to create a future beyond poverty and violence.

Comment below and suggest one way we can help young people access the skills, training, and opportunities they need to become employable and build a financially sustainable future.

We are raising $50,000 as an initial launch development milestone, not as the full budget for the initiative. This first step will help us begin building the foundation for the larger vision. If you believe every young person deserves a safer, more hopeful future and you believe in this work, please support the launch by making a gift, hosting an online fundraiser, or sharing this post.

Learn more about the program and give here: https://givebutter.com/support-sustainable-community....

Join the Create Conversations Community Facebook group and remain connected to the conversation:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/createconversationscommunity

For more in depth program information, email conversations@risenetwork.net.

Please share this post and let’s Build the Future, Together.

#CreateConversations #EconomicOpportunity #WorkforceDevelopment #YouthSuccess #CommunitySafety

Rise Network Community Development Corporation

Get The Scoop On Queens Ride NYC

Help Us To continue to inform and empower our community please Donate. Get The Scoop Weekly On the Global Black Community and Southeast Queens, NY. Subscribe to Our Mailing List. Receive the Latest Events, News, Jobs, and Top Community Economic Development Stories Like this one Click Here | Reach up to 1.3 million people Promote

-------

Queens Ride NYC

Our inaugural #RideQueens bike tour is less than a month away!

Join me, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Transportation Alternatives and up to 2,000 fellow cyclists on Sunday, September 20 in seeing our borough in a way you never have before.

Ride Queens will start and end in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, with riders being able to choose to cycle along either a 12- or 25-mile loop through Central, Eastern and Northern Queens. And after the ride, there will be a post-event festival in the park with food, performances and more.

But you MUST register in advance in order to ride. You can register at the link below, or find more information at www.queensbp.nyc.gov/ridequeens

https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSeZ9nwhCKKDaK.../viewform

Part Two: Fractured Families Create Fractured Communities

Help Us To continue to inform and empower our community please Donate. Get The Scoop Weekly On the Global Black Community and Southeast Queens, NY. Subscribe to Our Mailing List. Receive the Latest Events, News, Jobs, and Top Community Economic Development Stories Like this one Click Here | Reach up to 1.3 million people Promote

-------

IS YOUTH VIOLENCE AN EPIDEMIC
THAT COULD HURT SOMEONE YOU LOVE?

Part Two: Fractured Families Create Fractured Communities

What is one thing that could help bring families and neighbors closer together?

Part Two: Fractured Families Create Fractured Communities

Families and communities are connected. When families are wounded, disconnected, or unstable, those conditions can extend into neighborhoods, schools, and relationships. When communities are divided by fear, silence, and mistrust, young people may not receive the belonging, protection, guidance, and positive connection they need.

A fractured community can make it more difficult to recognize problems early, support families, protect young people, and respond to conflict before it becomes violence. Creating safer communities requires more than reacting after harm occurs. It requires people to rebuild relationships and accept shared responsibility for the well-being of young people.

The Create Conversations Community addresses this obstacle by creating opportunities for listening, education, mentorship, community forums, roundtables, civic participation, and shared action. Rebuilding relationships helps strengthen the network of support surrounding families and young people.

Comment below and tell me: What is one thing that could help bring families and neighbors closer together?

We are raising $50,000 as an initial launch-development milestone, not as the full budget for the initiative. This first step will help us begin building the foundation for the larger vision. If you believe every young person deserves a safer, more hopeful future and you believe in this work, please support the launch by making a gift, hosting an online fundraiser, or sharing this post.

Learn more about the program and give here:

https://givebutter.com/support-sustainable-community...

Join the Create Conversations Community Facebook group and remain connected to the conversation:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/createconversationscommunity

For more in-depth program information, email conversations@risenetwork.net.

The next post in the series, “Education Is the Key to Future Workforce Development,” will examine how education can help young people develop the skills, confidence, and opportunities needed to build a sustainable future.

Please share this post and let’s Build the Future, Together.

Rozalyn Shepard

Create Conversations Community

Rise Network Community Development Corporation

#CreateConversations #FracturedFamilies #FracturedCommunities #YouthViolenceAwareness #Mentorship #CommunitySafety #BuildTheFutureTogether

Cassandra Wilson, Jazz Voice Who Gave "Strange Fruit" New Power, Dies at 70

Help Us To continue to inform and empower our community please Donate. Get The Scoop Weekly On the Global Black Community and Southeast Queens, NY. Subscribe to Our Mailing List. Receive the Latest Events, News, Jobs, and Top Community Economic Development Stories Like this one Click Here | Reach up to 1.3 million people Promote

-------

Sultry and Socially Conscious Jazz Legend Cassandra Wilson Dies At 70

Wilson at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, NYC, 2007
Photo Credit Professor Bop

Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning singer whose Mississippi blues roots shaped one of the most distinctive voices in modern jazz, died Tuesday, September 1st in Jackson, Mississippi, according to Hinds County Coroner Jeramiah Howard.  Jeramiah Howard, confirmed her death at age 70; officials released no cause.

Wilson built her legacy as a musician who moved fluidly across genres, opening for Miles Davis and touring with Wynton Marsalis during a run of major jazz success through the 1980s and '90s. She embraced the title of musician above any single label, a stance that let her carry blues, folk, and soul into jazz spaces and expand who the genre could reach.

Her low, smoky voice brought fresh romance to Great American Songbook standards while she pulled covers from Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Young, and Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson into her repertoire, proving remarkably popular in decades when jazz lost mass audience share to rock and rap.

Wilson's rendition of "Strange Fruit" stands as one of her most powerful contributions to American music and memory. Billie Holiday's original recording exposed the horror of lynching in the Jim Crow South, and Wilson's version, with its slow-burning alto and spacious arrangement, carried that history forward for new listeners decades later. She turned the song into a bridge between generations, connecting the anti-lynching movement of the 20th century to ongoing conversations about racial violence today.

Checkout the Strange Fruit Video Below...

Part One: Dysfunctional Family Systems and Youth Violence

Help Us To continue to inform and empower our community please Donate. Get The Scoop Weekly On the Global Black Community and Southeast Queens, NY. Subscribe to Our Mailing List. Receive the Latest Events, News, Jobs, and Top Community Economic Development Stories Like this one Click Here | Reach up to 1.3 million people Promote

-------

Dysfunctional Family Systems and Youth Violence

Part One of the Create Conversations Community Educational Series

By Rozalyn Shepard

Is Youth Violence an Epidemic That Could Hurt Someone You Love?

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the Create Conversations Community.

When we talk about youth violence, we often focus on what happened, who was involved, and how the situation should be handled after harm has occurred. Those conversations are important, but we must also be willing to look deeper. We must ask what young people may be experiencing before they become involved in crime or violent behavior.

Youth violence does not happen in isolation. It can be connected to the conditions surrounding a young person, including the family system, the community, education, and access to sustainable opportunity. Today, I want to focus on the first of the four obstacles to success faced by poor families, dysfunctional family systems.

Looking Within Our Families

A young person’s first understanding of love, communication, conflict, responsibility, and safety often begins at home. Family is where many young people first learn how to express emotions, respond to disagreement, trust others, accept accountability, and seek help.

When a family system is affected by unresolved wounds, instability, poor communication, constant conflict, emotional disconnection, or the absence of positive guidance, young people may struggle to develop the tools they need to handle life’s challenges. They may carry anger that has never been addressed, pain they do not know how to express, or fear they have learned to hide.

These circumstances do not mean that every young person from a difficult family environment will become violent. They do mean that when young people lack stability, support, guidance, and healthy examples, they may become more vulnerable to isolation, negative peer influence, retaliation, and harmful choices.

That is why this conversation must begin with honest self-examination. We cannot only ask what is wrong with young people. We must also ask what young people are receiving from the adults and family systems around them.

Get The Scoop On Fun and Empowering Events in Southeast Queens the Weekend of September 4th

Help Us To continue to inform and empower our community please Donate. Get The Scoop Weekly On the Global Black Community and Southeast Queens, NY. Subscribe to Our Mailing List. Receive the Latest Events, News, Jobs, and Top Community Economic Development Stories Like this one Click Here | Reach up to 1.3 million people Promote

-------

Fun and Empowering Events in Southeast Queens the Weekend of September 4th

Click Picture for Larger View

THE THREE GEORGES: A New Lens on the Revolutionary War — And the Black Patriot Who Represents Thousands Coming Into the Light

Help Us To continue to inform and empower our community please Donate. Get The Scoop Weekly On the Global Black Community and Southeast Queens, NY. Subscribe to Our Mailing List. Receive the Latest Events, News, Jobs, and Top Community Economic Development Stories Like this one Click Here | Reach up to 1.3 million people Promote

-------

THE THREE GEORGES: A New Lens on the Revolutionary War — And the Black Patriot Who Represents Thousands Coming Into the Light

United States — National Freedom Day Foundation (501(c)(3)) — The Revolutionary War’s 250th anniversary has already passed, yet one of its most powerful truths is only now being restored.  Author Venita Maria Benitez releases The Three Georges: “3GS” 1776–1783 Revolutionary War (Commemorative Edition) — a warm, hopeful, and deeply human retelling of America’s founding years that finally brings George Key, a free Black Patriot, into the light where he always belonged.

For generations, America taught us about two Georges: George Washington and King George III.

But the story was never meant to be told in twos.

In this commemorative edition, all three Georges stand together — Washington, King George III, and George Key, the Black Patriot whose courage and presence shaped the Revolutionary War era but was left out of the nation’s memory.

And George Key is not standing alone. He represents thousands of Black Patriots whose names, stories, and sacrifices are finally coming into the light.