Dear ____________,

For our written letters to legislators i will be writing city councilor Chuck Turner, despite the recent shade that has been brought to him with this whole bribe scandal chuck has really helped the urban community of Boston, with the increasing gun violence and deaths i hope that my letter will help chuck stay motivated to continue his running in office and help fight towards decreasing the negativity taking over our city

Relating To My Project

HOW TO: Promote Peace Within Yourself And Your Community

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mallika-chopra/how-to-promote-peace-with_b_772135.html

                   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_7LqCDAQOQ&feature=player_embedded#!



I believe that self motivation is the key to refraining from being sucked into bad groups and being influenced by negative individuals, if everyone was there own person and set their own goals our society would/could be so much better, watch the video its really inspiring 

Blueprint

My project will be a collage of pictures and videos from the JROTC drill team competitions and an actual trophy brought in to present how a team of inner-city kids can still manage to be the BEST , im anticipating working with the cadets again because i know that their drive to win and become better is at a maximum this year , i am going to need to obtain a command list from my army instructor and the roster list of cadets that are on the team

i will try to get city councilor mark ciommo of  Brighton involved in this project for funding , i used to intern for him and we developed a very close relationship hopefully he will be able to fund the team for new rifles or more uniforms 

My Issue, My Tactics

The issue that I am going to be tackling is the lack of resources to keep our inner city youth in destroying their lives and the other lives of many families that have loss in gang related violence and delinquency


The problem is that I believe there are not enough after school programs and extra curricular activities that keep teenagers interested in wanting to make their lives better and disciplining them to want more in life


What’s at stake is that there and simply kids that are not contributing to the successful minorities in America , if everyone was able to find their niche and make themselves believe n themselves then we’ll just watch today’s youth fall into the cracks, one of the kids out there killing and robbing getting a record, could possibly be apart of the team to find a cure for cancer, or be the politician that  could help get America in to a better state

It matters to be because I have lost a lot of friends and seen friends lose loved ones to violence and it needs to stop

And it ends up effecting other friends of victims and family members and sometimes discouraging the people around the victim and causing them so go into the same path that their friend or family member was in and it creates a pattern that just doesn’t help our society at all

My solution for this problem is to help play a part in helping kids from urban areas stay after school and participate in a school team or sport, I have spoken to my old army instructor from my ROTC high school  program and we have planned out this years drill team season, being an alumni cadet I know a lot of the underclassman who participated in the team were from urban areas from Massachusetts that are gang-ridden and are exposed to violence, and encouraging them to not be with the bad crowds and actually help themselves

I know I can change the world but I think giving back to the program that helped me motivate myself  could make a difference to someone

Civic Engagement Oppourtunity

This past week i realized that my " Be The Change " project is going to be about (At Risk Boston Students) who need extra curricular activities to  keep themselves occupied while participating in self Construction rather than carrying on the violence and delinquency in Boston massachussettes


An opportunity i came across was the Brighton High School JROTC drill team, JROTC is a program in high school to motivate young people to become better citizens and graduate high school, as a former cadet i would know first hand how self improving this program is, the Drill team is one of the school extra curriculars that help students stay after and actually learn techniques that could help them , i was apart of the Unarmed Exhibition Team which placed 1st in the North Eastern Brigade and most of the cadets on that team were from urban parts of boston were gun violence and death was of a common sort, i believe that helping with this years drill team and making sure that the cadets stay commited could actually help them improve themselves, and possibly motives their friends and friends of their friends to become more active on a school team, i am not trying to save the city, just help make it a little better

--JJ