Social Change

On Friday at our Americorps meeting we watched the documentary "Crips and Bloods:Made in America."

After spending four years working at the Innocence Institute with a boss that went to Kent State during the shootings, and then spent his post college days reporting on crime and interviewing gang members and mob men before starting the Innocecene Project, I was well aware of the views the people in these communities develop about their survival and possibilites in life. I'd heard it from the innmates I interviewed for cases and from my boss when he told stories about the interivews he'd done.

My work at the Innocence Institute ended almost a year ago and Ive been thinking for a few months now how much I miss doing the kind of work where I really felt like I was inspiring change and part of something that was making a difference in society.

Watching this movie and talking to other Americorps members after it ended really brought all of that out all over again. I want to go to those communities I want to be part of something that is helping these young kids see that there are other things they can do. They don't have to do what they're parents are doing or their neighbors are doing.(That was a comment one of the men in the movie made.) I want to help somehow, but I have no idea how to begin to organize something like that. Or where to go to get involved in helping these low income neighborhoods or families where drugs and guns are sold like ice cream is in my suburban neighborhood in Alexandria.

Now the question is where to begin?