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My service will develop like the Lotus

The lotus flower symbolizes rising from a dark place into beauty and rebirth, as this is exactly how a lotus flower grows. Lotus flowers grow directly out of muddy and murky waters and produce beautiful white and pink blossoms. Lotus flowers are often referred to in Buddhist studies and they are a symbol of strength among adversity.

Like the environment that produces a lotus appears murky, disadvantaged and proverbially dark, so too is my site community, with its rates of illiteracy, unemployment, drop-out, teen pregnancy and poverty, seemingly capable of producing the murky disadvantage that cycles of poverty yield. Notwithstanding this however, given our resilience, we are poise from this vantage point to only get better and pregnant with the possibilities for growth. 
Growth through our planned computer literacy center that will be a multi service center providing the community with a community run Internet cafe and virtual library, manned by trained community members. 
Growth through our land title formalization project that will seek partnerships to convert informally possessed land into secure formal title and fixed asset that will serve to sustain the people, farms, homes and structures on the land. Land title formalization is a key to secure, sustainable financial empowerment. 

Growth through our environment projects. Our recycling project still underway from Coastal Cleanup Day has secured our school’s entry into both the LASCO Reap and JET competitions (we were one of only 16 schools nationwide whose plan of intent was accepted by JET), and will be sustained by the collection, washing, crushing and sale of bottles to the Port Maria depot. We are presently awaiting the arrival of 10 drums donated by a local company headquartered in Kingston. 
Growth through our Rivers and gully clean-up, a proposal initiated by our students in the Environment Club and will be pitched to the community at meetings this Wednesday at 2:30 and 4:30. Our river cleanup will be an ongoing community project quarterly to ensure the safety of the community waterways that provide some of the fish we eat, the water we bathe in, wash in and consume. 
Growth through our youth intervention radio show, ‘sway the right way’ gives unempowered youth the forum to air their issues towards seeking resolution through the connection with other communities and invited guests specializing in the particular theme of the various shows. Youth will be mentored in the working of the radio station, the writing and programming of radio shows, engineering and broadcasting. 
Growth through our community action show, “A Fi Wi Komuniti’ will allow community members the forum to team with empaneled guests to seek resolution and/or information. The focus of the community impact show is community empowerment identifying that solutions to our community issues are oftentimes available within the community and its environs. 
Growth through our GLOW club that will advance girls education and empowerment to avoid the pitfalls of rural culture and poverty on our Girls. 
Growth through our women’s empowerment group, Women Empowering, Appreciating and Respecting Self (WEARS), that seeks to promote positive sense of self and identity amongst community women as a vehicle to end cycles of dependency, and illiteracy. It is our GLOW club for women and we will adopt the same principles of GLOW. 
Growth through our recent partnership with local hotels which has seen an influx of resources brought to our school, as well as opportunities for well deserved playground enhancements to include swings, monkey bars, netball court, basketball court and/or tennis court. It is common knowledge that the lack of physical education in schools account for a significant amount of the listlessness, lack of focus, boredom and behavioral challenges in the classrooms. Jacks River Primary is no different. Through partnerships with local resorts, we will seek to bring guest professionals to interact with our students and the playground they will help build. My next project of this kind will seek to bring music education to my school, if even as an after school measure. 
Growth through our chess club, still in its infancy. I was pleased to read recently the the District Attorney of my hometown, Brooklyn, New York, has proposed a program that teaches inner city youth chess as a delinquency diversion program. I was able to share this with my school principal. 
From project to project, our community is rising and I do believe that my site has the potential of producing the next CEO and CFO, journalist, advertising executive and lawyer that our students simulated at JA BizTown; the next tennis, chess, football, basketball, netball, track athlete and academic superstar, and so we press on so that our esteem, identity, self-respect, literacy and numeracy increase to mastery and towards empowerment. 
Wi a go try fi Mek more links we di piipl dem caan yuz fi beta demself. 
“Wi de ya fi grink milk, wi no de ya fi kount kow,” so we are rising; slowly, but we rise just the same.

Published by: Local Lives, Global Voices

I, Chandra Young, ‘the moon that outshines the stars, was born in Kingston Jamaica to an Indian Father whose family migrated from India, and a mulatto mother, whose family, paternally and maternally, trace their history on the island to the 17th century sale of slaves, and slaves themselves. We migrated to the United States while I was a youngster. I later went on to graduate from The City College of New York, with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science; then Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, with a Jurisdoctor degree; and I am currently on hiatus from my doctoral studies in Law and Policy at Northeastern University. After graduating from law school, I successfully sat for both the Florida and New York Bars, and worked in both the Private and Public Sectors. Simultaneously, my role as mother and my passion for education pushed me into Academia, where I have lectured at colleges in the areas of Political Science, History, Business Law, Sociology, Pluralism and Diversity, Critical Thinking, Critical Academic Reading and English Composition. In these capacities, I have mentored inner city/urban college students, and have also served as Guardian Ad Litem to the Seminole County Courts, where I advocated on behalf of children of families in crisis. Being a scholar of Political Science in my collegiate years, I contributed my talents and passions towards championing of the rights of my fellow students, many of whom, like myself, were of Immigrant families. I was instrumental in a student movement that spearheaded a University-wide student boycott protesting tuition hikes in the City University system. The successful protest led to the shutdown of all the University’s colleges in every Borough, and got the attention of the media and politicians of the day. The result of the successful protest was a halt of any tuition increase for several fiscal terms. Today, the City University and State University systems are free to families earning less that $125,000.00, which include most urban, inner-city and immigrant students. While at City College, I was selected as a student ambassador contestant in the Ms. Jamaica-USA pageant, sponsored by the Jamaica Progressive League and the Honorable Una Clarke, the first Caribbean and Jamaican born woman to be elected to the legislature of the City of New York, and mother of United States Congresswoman Yvette Clark. A diligent advocate of affordable housing for New Yorkers, I was committed to the mission of realizing the American dream of home ownership for New Yorkers and I am the recipient of a Proclamation by the City Council of the City of New York, for my efforts in that regard. My dedication to the City of New York and immigrant communities, particularly those of Caribbean heritage, have been unwavering, and I was presented with the Marcus Garvey Award of Recognition by the New York based Jamaica National Movement, for service to Jamaicans and Caribbean people in the City of New York. I continued my passion of being a part of a mission to champion the rights of underprivileged and underrepresented persons in my recent milestone, the United States Peace Corps, where I dedicated 18 months of my life, away from home and family, to the people of Jamaica, as a Literacy Adviser and Community Developer. I am the mother of two children, a writer, blogger and poet. I always loved writing. As a child, I remember finding privacy and solace to write in my garage, where I could hide the written pages amongst the plethora of books our family stored there. I began blogging on my Facebook page and was encouraged by friends who enjoyed by posts, to start a blog. I officially started this blog during my Peace Corps Service, but it is certainly not limited to my service. In fact, it represents an amalgamation of thoughts expressed and lived through the direct and vicarious experiences that being a global citizen can provide. This blog is my way of building a bridge that connects our local lives experienced in our specific localities, with the global voices that unites us in the similar experiences, concerns, pains, passions, etc that joins us together as human beings in spite of geography. You there.......Me here. We....together in one world....one humanity.

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