Over the past two years I worked as a teacher in inner city Kansas City, MO. Returning to school this past fall as a Community Development and Planning (CDP) Master’s student at Clark University was hard because I no longer had that time with youth that had inspired me to move halfway across the country and work the hardest I had ever worked to meet their academic goals. Over the past year I had felt there was something missing in my life, but a recent final project for a spring semester class brought back work with youth that I love to do.
We were assigned a project that assessed the walkability of sidewalks near Woodland Academy in south Worcester. The survey inquired about everything from lighting, to sidewalk texture, to average daily traffic and posted speed limit. It was quite comprehensive and took my partner and I some time to really get comfortable with using the rubric. It took us several walking trips to assess 30 blocks of the community and nearing the end of our last trip, I was getting pretty bored and uninspired by the task at hand. I was walking down one of the last three blocks to be examined past a Buddhist temple when two young boys asked me what I was doing.
They first asked me if I knew what the Buddhist temple was. I explained to them that it was a religious tradition and gave them a few details that I knew about Buddha’s life. Satisfied with the answer the two boys (we’ll call them Luis and Tremaine) asked me what I was doing with my clipboard. I showed them the rubric and told them that I was working on a project that measured how safe sidewalks were for kids. Luis and Tremaine asked if they could help me do my work and I taught them how to do the survey. They took to exploring the streets with me and were very detailed in their reporting. Both had grown up on the street and currently lived on the next block.
Luis and Tremaine knew every spot where they or their friends had scrapped their knees, been threatened, or almost hit by cars. They knew everyone’s route to school and had gone to Woodland. These youth were an untapped resources that we had not even thought of in designing the project. The experience combined my passions for inspiring youth and assessing a desperate community need. Luis and Tremaine have expressed interest in getting more involved with projects that make an impact, not only on the physical constructions but the social safety of their community. They want to make a difference for generations after them to feel safe walking to school and working towards a healthier lifestyle.
