1: Mission Safe is a community and youth development organization with a focus on violence prevention, addressing the impacts of trauma, and educational assistance. The organization was founded in 1998 in Roxbury, and in 2005 they established a second location in Charlestown. The Mission of this organization is “to work with Boston’s highly at-risk youth and their families to gain the skills and confidence to thrive, not just survive, and to improve their community and their world.” They accomplish this by running year-round programming for youth in their communities ages 14 to 24.
The three programs the organization offers are called “Youth Leadership and Service Corps”, “Summer of Leadership and Service”, and “Futures”. Each of these programs engage youth in age-appropriate activities that promote “leadership development education, employment preparation, horizon broadening, and life skills/civic engagement”. The organization provides these programs in order to help youth achieve academic, social, and professional success. Additionally, MissionSAFE staff members work closely with family members and school employees of youth, which helps to “ensure a continuum of care”.
2: The service learning project that our group undertook this semester was in collaboration with an organization called Mission SAFE. Mission SAFE is a youth development organization located in Roxbury. After working with the organization’s Executive Director, we chose to focus on food as an intersection of personal and environmental health for our project. Through the development and implementation of a short series of workshops, we introduced green language development, the three R’s framework, and the concept of sustainability as a circular, rather than linear, system. Through this project we created a program which the organization can revisit and teach again for years to come. Using group activities, arts and crafts, and discussion-based sessions we endeavored to build the youth’s knowledge about and sense of commitment to the environment.
One weekly program was conducted. The session began with an informational presentation, which led into a game or group activity. The session concluded with an open discussion and reflection. During the presentation, we discussed the importance of sustainability, defining the Three Rs, and connecting these ideas to food. Next we proceeded to playing a game with the students. Teens received cards portraying a type of food or consumption behavior, and were asked to place their card somewhere along a spectrum of “Very sustainable” to “Very unsustainable”. The group subsequently evaluated each other’s choices. At the end, we all gathered to discuss what we had learned throughout the session that day. We also discussed some essential questions such as, “What are ways we can play a part in bringing about a sustainable food system?”
After the session was planned and held, it was decided that the remainder of our service project would be dedicated to creating a booklet of how Mission SAFE could continue with similar work in the future. This booklet included specific lesson plans for teaching teens about sustainability, game ideas, possible field trips, and resources for more information. Some examples of possible field trips that we included were The Food Project, Freight Farms, and a rooftop garden. We felt adding in field trips would be worthwhile for the teens, so that they could see how there are a variety ways that the local community works to create a more sustainable food system. This booklet will serve as a tool to the organization to carry on with the necessary work of starting conversations centered around sustainability with youth.
3:The service learning with Mission SAFE was quite rewarding. Having the opportunity to connect with youth in the area and engage them in a discussion about sustainability and their own roles in it was a unique experience I think for both parties involved. As the facilitators of the discussion our main goal was to keep the conversation going and encourage them to think beyond their initial reaction or to elaborate on their thinking. All the students were actively engaged and had some interesting thoughts and rationalizations for their choices. One obstacle we did face was timing and coordination between the site and us, as well as when the students would be there to participate. Since this is an after school program and they also had other events lined up it was difficult to coordinate everyone involved. Though I believe the final result was worth the effort to go and talk with them about such a large and important topic, as well as giving them resources to use later down the line as apart of self-education.
What is discussed in the Environmental Forum course is largely how are we are a part of ecological systems, what roles we play, and how can we alter our behaviors to positively influence the world around us. Our discussion with the students was very similar in nature and was largely about self reflection as well as beginning to understand the systems and models of consumerism around us. We were also able to encourage them to look at environmental health as an extension of personal and community health, a framework we often employed in class. By choosing to focus on food, we were able to bring up issues of waste, recycling, agriculture, water, and landfills, often utilizing material we had covered in class meetings. We were also able to pass on some of the knowledge and resources we had gained as a part of Environmental Forum to MissionSafe in our booklet, which the organization will be able to use for years to come.
My fellow group members are:
Eust
Bridget Deyeso
Tala Ferguson
