Covenant with our Youth

I am looking for some suggestions and feedback for a covenant we as adults we can make with our youth. Instead of looking at apportioning blame and spending countless hours wringing our hands in distress at the continual reported failures of our youth, how about we throw out some ideas of a covenant we can have with our youth. Something that is recognisable not just to our own children, but all youth within the wider community.

Over to you.

Hopes for 2007

That the profile of achievement of our black youth improves.
That we sign covenants with our children to take them to the next level.

2-007. Lets Licence our Youth to Thrill!

Walk Like A Champion

Many years ago I started out with the idea of a project. The project was called Walk Like A Champion and its main premise was to be the creation of a book that would be used to empower young black men to achieve both academically and in enterprise.

As a speaker, youth worker and mentor I was constantly frustrated with the constant emphasis being placed on sports, entertainment and crime being the holy trinity of career options for inner city students, and felt that there was so much more out there that could be offered to such students. Yes of course there are inequalities of access, poverty, racism but there are so many who achieved against the odds that to offer a glimmer of hope surely had to be the way forward. Such stories could provide inspiration and empowerment to a new generation.

Walk Like A Champion has since evolved into somewhat of a wider dream. Not just for young black men, but young black women as well to see what they can achieve and those that have gone before them. The purpose of this weblog is to capture those experiences both in word and visually of the people and programmes that help to empower students and make them see that there are role models out there, that there is a network of succesful black professionals in business, academia, the creative arts, government and the community. Not to have to wait on some charity handout or government policy to do so, but to act from within. So this weblog is the seedling, where we can start to encourage that champion walk and who knows raise to the parapet existing but low profile projects which seek to do the same.

It is still my lofty ambition to not only complete such a book, whether self published or in partnership with a recognised publishing house, but to be able to have a TV programme as well, and a readily available resource in the hands of those who need it.

Whilst I may seem biased towards sports and entertainment, there is enough acreage of media dedicated to achievements here, its time to broaden the scope. I give no apologies for ignoring the negative to accentuate the positive. I want to highlight the stories and achievements of successful black professionals to empower a new generation. To empower them to walk and talk and behave like champions. Plain and simple.
magnificently yours
David McQueen