| Welcome
to the January issue of Provplan’s e-newsletter. This
issue profiles the work of PrYSM, the Providence Youth Student
Movement, a remarkable group of young people providing leadership
in the Southeast Asian youth community. We also highlight the
good news of HUD funding for YouthBuild, putting us in strong
financial position for the next two years. And the story about
the improved kindergarten scores in Providence illustrates the
powerful impact that an organized and focused community can
have when it decides to work together on behalf of children
in the city. We have much to do this year and beyond but we
are building on solid foundations as these three stories demonstrate. R2LP reports encouraging
data on the well-being of Providence’s children
Of particular interest to R2LP is the substantial increase in the number of students entering kindergarten this past fall who met state and national benchmarks for early literacy. Sixty-eight percent of this year’s kindergartners met the benchmark this fall, compared to 55 percent in 2003 and 2004. The School Department began to see a rise in this score in 2005, when 64 percent of the children met the benchmark in the fall. Kindergartners in Providence public schools are assessed twice annually using the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS-K) – at the beginning of the school year and then again at the end. Further analysis will be needed to identify the factors that contributed to this increase, but many believe the work of R2LP played some role – and perhaps a significant one. Since 2003, more than 900 early-care and education providers in Providence have participated in R2LP’s professional development activities. Nearly half of these providers have been trained through R2LP’s HeadsUp! Reading program (HUR), a 45-hour course that seeks to improve the skills of early-care providers in promoting early language and literacy development. [more on R2LP Data...]
“It’s a very competitive process and many YouthBuild programs have to shut their doors if they don’t receive this award,” notes Andrew Cortes, director of YouthBuild Providence. “It speaks of the continued confidence HUD has in our program.” YouthBuild once relied almost exclusively on HUD funding for
its financing, but in recent years the organization has reached
out to other funders. In the coming year, HUD money will finance
just 50 percent of the budget, according to Andrew. The newest
grant covers a 30-month period. [more on YouthBuild
Award ...]
Partner Profile PrYSM reflects light
on Southeast Asian youth “It was at an early meeting of this group when eight or nine Cambodians came knocking on our door,” recalls Kohei Ishihara, who was a student at Brown University at the time. “They said they needed our help because they were being deported. All of them had been in the U.S. since they were toddlers and they no longer had any family or connections in Cambodia. They were desperate.” It soon became clear to the group that deportation was a key issue facing the Southeast Asian community. Prior to 2001, Cambodians convicted of a crime could not be deported because the United States did not have diplomatic relations with Cambodia. But in 2001 the two governments signed a treaty regulating deportation between the two countries. Suddenly, Cambodians who were not U.S. citizens and who had been convicted of an “aggravated felony” – which was expanded in 1996 to include nonviolent crimes such as shoplifting – were now at serious risk of deportation after serving their prison sentences. With deportation as its early focus, the Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) got to work as a community group, with Kohei and his roommate from Brown, Sarath Suong, playing a large role in its mission and organization. In its first year, PrYSM helped build a national coalition to fight deportation, organized educational events, sponsored a 300-person march to the Providence INS office to highlight the deportation issue, and held a large protest in coordination with a National Day of Action. In addition to diminishing the stigma of deportation and starting a community-wide dialogue, PrYSM set up two legal clinics, screened over 30 Southeast Asians with deportation orders, and provided legal advocacy for its clients in immigration court. PrYSM, now a nonprofit organization, has grown both in size
and scope since then. Most of the city’s Southeast Asians
who are under 24 years old are now citizens, so deportation
has become less of an issue. Still, PrYSM saw that in too many
cases, and for a host of different reasons, Southeast Asian
youths were struggling. Many of their parents exhibit some form
of mental illness, a lingering effect of the wars, torture and
genocide that that generation experienced before emigrating.
[more on PrYSM...] Additional professional development activities affecting early literacy among Providence children are R2LP’s Early Reading First and AmeriCorps programs. ERF is a three-year program that provides resources and training for providers at four of the city’s child-care centers to promote early language and literacy development. At these sites, R2LP measures child literacy using two different assessments, PALS-PreK and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The Education Alliance found that the children at the sites had made statistically significant gains, and that all gains were larger on average than those reported in other national studies. (R2LP recently received federal funding to launch a second ERF program at four additional sites.) Outreach efforts by R2LP’s AmeriCorps members have resulted in greater use of library resources by early-care providers throughout the city. In tracking the well-being of the city’s children, R2LP
uncovered other positive trends (both citywide and in R2LP’s
eight target neighborhoods) when it examined new data from the
R.I. Department of Health. In comparing five-year rolling averages
from 1996 to 2000 and 2001 to 2005, R2LP found: These encouraging data come despite recently released Census data that indicate child poverty in Rhode Island is increasing – from 16 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2004. Childhood poverty typically correlates with poor outcomes across all areas of child development – from health and behavior to school performance and drop-out rates. [top]
“A lot of these young people have struggled in the past, but they are looking to turn things around and become independent citizens,” said Sen. Jack Reed in announcing the HUD grant. “This money will offer more young people an opportunity to build for their future and help create a better educated workforce for Rhode Island.” HUD Regional Director Taylor Caswell is currently scheduling a date with YouthBuild to make a public announcement of the award in Providence. This is the last year HUD will award this financing; the Department of Labor will oversee these funds in the future. [top]
PrYSM also found that many gay and lesbian Southeast Asian youths felt both isolated and stigmatized – both within their own culture and the broader community. Because most gay support groups are not culturally relevant to the Southeast Asian, PrYSM set up seaQuel (Southeast Asian Queers United for Empowerment and Leadership). This group participates in a range of political and educational activities and also sponsors social events. PrYSM’s third program is The Organizing Circle (OC), which is considered the cornerstone of the organization. The OC team – comprising PrYSM’s four staff members, representatives from the BRIDGE and seaQuel programs, and four high school students – identify and develop community organizing campaigns. This year the OC conducted a survey on 15 percent of the city’s Southeast Asian youth community, gathering responses from some 400 people and now, with the help of ProvPlan, analyzing the data to develop a needs assessment. With support from New Roots, PrYSM is hiring a seasoned organizer to teach young people how to create a successful organizing campaign. New Roots funds will also help PrYSM deepen and train its board of directors. Kohei, who serves as the organization’s executive director, is the only full-time staff member paid directly through PrYSM. Co-founder Sarath Suong serves as the program manager for seaQuel, and Paul Pasaba is the program manager for BRIDGE. Theary Voeul is a fulltime staff member paid by AmeriCorps VISTA. Although PrYSM’s focus has always been the Southeast Asian community, the organization welcomes participants of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Kohei looks forward to working with the other partners in New Roots’ Communities Empowering Youth initiative because, he says, “Almost any issue you pick for one community overlaps with those of another.” For more information on PrYSM, go to www.prysm.us
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Data recently analyzed by Ready to Learn Providence (R2LP),
a program of The Providence Plan, reveal some highly positive
trends for child well-being and school readiness in Providence.
Folks at YouthBuild Providence, a program of The Providence
Plan, are sleeping a little easier, thanks to the December announcement
by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) of
a $700,000 award.
Disturbed by serious challenges facing the city’s Southeast
Asian community, several college students created an informal
organization in 2001 designed to help the community build power
and become less marginalized. Of particular concern was the
violence affecting the community, especially among its youth.
