Last week it was the City of Poughkeepsie. This week, it’s the town. Next week? More of the same.
But the area’s six-week Community Youth Mapping Project is winding down, and soon the kids will be turning in their clipboards and cameras for notebooks and calculators and heading back to school.
“Jobs are something we lack for our youth in this city,” said Youth Mapping supervisor Antonio Butler, who was hired to work with the teens by Assets Coming Together for Youth (ACT), a youth development initiative implemented locally through the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Dutchess County that promotes social change and helps young people succeed.
The program teamed up with Nubian Directions Community Technology Resource Center, Families First New York, Protect the Dream, and the Weed and Seed Initiative of Poughkeepsie to send young people out into the community; now, they’re hitting the streets to canvas the city and town in search for resources for their families, their friends, and themselves.
Their efforts are part of a larger initiative – Community YouthMapping (CYM) – a nationwide effort to mobilize both young and old to identify opportunities and resources in their communities.
Through the program, which is instituted by the Academy for Education Development (AED) in Washington, D.C., people canvass their neighborhoods looking for places to go and things to do, and enter their findings onto data sheets, which are later compiled and added to a computerized database.
CYM began in 1995 and has been implemented in more than a dozen states and 100 municipalities throughout the country. The state of Indiana currently leads the way with 12 municipalities canvassed. New York comes in second with 11 municipalities canvassed – including Dutchess County and nearby Orange County – and Massachusettes comes in third with 10 municipalities canvassed.
On the CYM Web site, canvassed areas are categorized by state. After searchers choose a state search fields narrow, first by municipality, then by “activities” – ranging from “art and music” and “food and housing” to “recreation” and more. Chosen categories are furthered narrowed by “activities related to your choices.” Finally, searchers are able to choose resources by location, business hours, and days of operation. The result? A comprehensive list of local sites, along with their addresses, telephone numbers and services offered.
According to Butler, this six-week summer program is the first of its kind in Poughkeepsie.
Hitting the streets
Each morning more than a dozen teens gather at two Poughkeepsie locations – the Family Partnership Center on North Hamilton Street and Nubian Directions II on Main Street. Afterward, each group takes to the streets in pairs, canvassing area businesses. The groups began in the City of Poughkeepsie in mid-July, splitting the wards between them.
After just two weeks, they ventured into the town, and now they’re currently canvassing South Road.
Butler says that most businesses greet the teens and are receptive to the five-minute survey. In fact they’ve already surveyed more than 100 businesses locally, and only a few chose not to participate.
After a day’s work the groups return to their original locations and enter their information into the computerized database.
“For me this has been a great experience,” said 17-year-old Poughkeepsie resident Sabrina Davis. “I’ve learned a lot – like how to talk to people,” she said.
Davis learned about the program through the Protect the Dream Youth Program, where she works during the school year tutoring children. She thinks that the communication skills that she’s learned through YouthMapping will help her when she continues working with the kids in the fall.
Butler thinks so too, but in addition to communication skills, he hopes the teens also learn how to effectively deal with people, and how to work well with others.
“The world is tough, and I’m still learning,” said Butler, “but I hope my experience can help them.”
Butler is 20 years old and a business student at SUNY Cobleskill. He was born in Poughkeepsie, moved to Albany – where he still resides – and he currently works in New York City and Poughkeepsie, but he says it’s all worth it.
He’ll be returning to school at the end of this month, and will miss the last day of the project, but he says he’ll come back to Poughkeepsie on breaks to check in on the teens who he’s been working with.
“I’ve gotten really attached to these kids,” said Butler.