Subscribe to FeedThe saddest, unreported damage of Katrina
by Jeff RosenbergI was in Gulfport, Mississippi last week. I was spending a day with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Gulfport, working with them on how to reach target audiences as part of their abstinence-education program. (Those programs, by the way, get a real bum rap in the popular press – a future Blogenberg, you can bet.) They revealed to me devastating damage from Katrina that, to my knowledge, has gone unreported.
Like every program working with young people, hoping to guide youth to a healthy and rewarding future, the staff at Boys and Girls Clubs in Gulfport rely on kids with a positive attitude, with a hopeful and healthy outlook on the future. These “positively charged” kids act as leaders and role models for other youth in the community. Youth workers rely on the “positively charged” kids like a battery that helps power the entire group, pushing them all toward constructive use of their time, helping all to see that goals are worth pursuing.
Ever since Katrina, the staff shared with me, the number of these “positively charged” kids has been steadily going down. Fewer and fewer young people have an optimistic outlook on the future. Fewer and fewer view the future as something to be embraced, as a malleable resource they can shape. More and more see the future as something that will just happen to them.
The long-term impact of the diminishing “positively charged” kids won’t be known for quite some time. I suspect it may ultimately prove to be more damaging to the gulf region, in the long run, than flooded houses.
From Blogenberg’s Believe it or Not: To be heard on R&B and pop music stations nationwide, a new song. To the tune of the classic, “I heard it through the grapevine,” it’s “Ooh, I did your boyfriend.” I’m not making this up. You can’t.
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