Hey Homegirls!

Have any of you ever heard of something called Journey for Change? No? Well Journey for Change is the organization Malaak Compton-Rock founded in Bushwick, Brooklyn (where her husband, comedian Chris Rock grew up) to encourage and show young people how they can give back and be of service to others. This summer, Malaak took 30 kids from Brooklyn to South Africa (an 18-hour flight! and believe me, you feel every minute of it) to volunteer in some of the poorest communities there that have been ravaged by AIDS. It was the first time that a lot of the kids had been outside of the city, and definitely the country; a crash course in international education. They learned some Zulu, visited shantytowns and saw the exteme  poverty there (no electricity, an extended family living in a two-room shack, sharing bathrooms, no windows, no heat, no air), spent time playing with HIV-infected babies who didn’t have parents, learning traditional songs and dances, donated school supplies and clothes, and helped sew seeds for crops. They also took photos and video of their experiences. Amazing.

Now, while this post is about Journey for Change, I want to take a quick moment to just point out that while the group visited a lot of poverty-stricken areas, all of South Africa is not like that; just like all parts of New York City are not the same. So in the same way Bushwick is different from Ft. Greene or Astoria is different from Forest Hills, Capetown is not Johannesburg (in fact, just like in neighborhoods in NYC or in cities here  in the U.S., you can have very different experiences on different parts of town). I know that because of the fraudulent way the mainstream media depicts stories about Africa, it’s easy to assume that it’s one monolithic place. It doesn’t help that every time you turn on the TV and see a Feed the Children commercial, there is a starving, crying, malnourished baby with a pot belly and flies surrounding him. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of poverty across the continent, there definitely is, I’m just saying that there is also a lot of beauty. So keep an open mind.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled post.

I thought the story of Malaak and the Project for Change kids’ journey to South Africa, particularly the kinds of volunteer work that they did there, and the things they discovered, was very inspiring. Only, it’s too bad that the people it was meant to inspire- young people like you- have probably never heard of it. Sure, it was profiled on CNN‘s Black in America (you didn’t watch it? Well believe me, you didn’t miss much) and written about in about both Essence and Time for Kids. But do you read either of those publications? Probably not. That’s because a lot of (positive) stories written about young people are written for newspapers or magazines that only adults read. And the teen publications don’t cover these types of stories either. So that’s one of the reasons I started this blog- to try create a place where young people like you can go to find stories written about other teens who are from where you’re from (NYC, Jersey and Connecticut). So instead of only hearing about the negativity that makes it on the news, you can get a balanced picture of what it means to me young, creative and live in the city. The good and the bad. And the places and people (here in NYC) where you can go for help. In one convenience place…right here…at Homegirl NYC. Ok (Jumping off my soapbox).

If you are interested in reading more about Journey for Change (and I would highly recommend it), you can visit Malaak’s website (there are photos, and even videos from the kids who went on the trip and plenty of other information). You can also read about their incredible journey in Time for Kids and Essence.

What did you think of the stories? Would you be interested in going on a journey like that? Why? Why not?

Let me know what you think!