article by via vibe.com
Reuben Nsemoh was unable to speak Spanish until he woke up from his coma. Nsemoh, who attends Brookwood High School in Georgia and has 3.6 GPA, is the goalkeeper for his soccer team. During a game last month, the 16-year-old athlete was kicked in the head by a player when diving for the ball, which resulted in a coma for three weeks.
The teen jock, who was never able to speak Spanish before the accident, gives credit to his friends who always spoke the language around him. “My friends would always talk to me in Spanish and would teach me,” he said.
Nsemoh said he hopes to return to soccer as soon as he is fully recovered. His coach refuses to put him back on the field unless he wears a helmet. Recovering at home he expressed how hard life is for him since the accident. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not here, but I am,” Nsemoh told WSB Radio.
The incident has been extremely hard on Nsemoh’s family as well, due to an extensive medical bill of $200,000. Hopefully, their GoFundMe will aid in some of the medical costs.
Posts published in “Teens”
Tech giant Google is aiming to foster the next generation of leaders by increasing learning opportunities for students of color by spearheading an initiative aimed towards encouraging young people of color to pursue careers in technology.
Launched earlier this week by the multimedia behemoth, the Code Next program was established in an effort to combat recent Google statistics citing that 51 percent of Black students and 47 percent of Latino students lack access to computer science classes in their schools.
Stressing the importance of students being given adequate learning tools to broaden their knowledge of technology in today’s constantly evolving tech environment, Code Next will provide enriching curriculum that serves to connect computer science to the students’ daily lives.
To read full, original article, go to: http://www.essence.com/news/google-code-next-lab
Stressing the importance of students being given adequate learning tools to broaden their knowledge of technology in today’s constantly evolving tech environment, Code Next will provide enriching curriculum that serves to connect computer science to the students’ daily lives.
To read full, original article, go to: http://www.essence.com/news/google-code-next-lab
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
Jack and Jill of America, Inc.’s youngest members collected pennies, nickels and dimes as part of their Loose Change Program that resulted in a $35,000 donation to the Obama Foundation, in support of Chicago’s Barack Obama Presidential Library. Mothers and families of Jack and Jill of America in Chicago came together to present the foundation with the donation in a private celebration.
“The Mid Western Region was incredibly honored to present this donation that not only honors the first African-American US President, Barack Obama, but makes an impact in a community that needs positive reinforcements and contributions,” says Mid-Western Regional Director Nadine Gibson. “As advocates for childhood literacy, Jack and Jill understands the important role public libraries play in communities.”
The Loose Change program was initiated as a giving opportunity for our youth ages two through 12, to make a significant impact in underserved communities. The Mid-Western Region received the donation collected in 2015 and selected the Barack Foundation as the recipient of choice.
“We are excited about this giving opportunity. Now, each time we visit the Library we will know that Jack and Jill helped to make a positive contribution to its development and commitment to the community,” says Mid-Western Regional Teen President, Kellen Love.
For more information on how you can make a donation, or to find out more about Jack and Jill of America and its chapters, visit jackandjillinc.org.
article by Joy Resmovits via latimes.com
Instead of going to school, school will come to you.
That’s the prize-winning idea behind RISE High, a proposed Los Angeles charter high school designed to serve homeless and foster children whose educations are frequently disrupted.
Los Angeles educators Kari Croft, 29, and Erin Whalen, 26, who came up with the idea, won $10 million in XQ: The Super School Project, a high school redesign competition funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs.
RISE is one of 10 $10-million winning school projects nationwide. Winners receive the prize money over five years.
XQ officials, in announcing the winners on Wednesday, described RISE as a “completely new” model. The idea is to have three to four physical sites sharing space with existing nonprofits as well as an online learning system. A bus will also be turned into a “mobile resource center,” to bring Wi-Fi, a washer/dryer and homework help to the neediest students.
That way, if a student suddenly moves or can’t get to school, he or she will have various options to get tutoring or the day’s lesson. “The model exists outside the traditional confines of space and time,” Croft said.
RISE, which stands for Revolutionary Individualized Student Experience, is in its preliminary stages. It will be a charter school, but the staff is still figuring out governance structure, facilities and partnerships. As of now, the plan is to open with a small group of students next fall, but eventually to serve between 500 and 550.
article by Breanna Edwards via theroot.com
The Obama administration is asking schools and colleges to clarify the role of law-enforcement officials who serve campuses, the Washington Post reports.
According to the report, the recommendations come after several violent encounters between school police and students, sparking debate about whether authorities are actually keeping children safe or arresting them for no reason. “The goal here is to give people a resource to do better,” Education Secretary John King told reporters during a call Wednesday, the Post notes.
The departments of Education and Justice sent letters to school nationwide encouraging school districts and colleges to make their expectations for school police explicit and clear by signing memorandums of understanding with local law-enforcement agencies. The departments recommend that the memorandums require training for school officers and also explicitly state that their role should not involve meting out day-to-day discipline, as well as other specifications.
Although the initiative is essentially guidance from the federal government, the Post notes, agencies will be required to follow it in order to qualify for federal grants that pay for the hiring of up to 150 school resource officers a year. The Post also notes, however, that the officers supported by those grants are a minority of the 31,000 school resource officers who work in public schools across the nation.
To read full article, go to: Obama Administration Encourages Schools to Clarify Role of School Police
article by Rachel L. Swarns via nytimes.com
Nearly two centuries after Georgetown University profited from the sale of 272 slaves, it will embark on a series of steps to atone for the past, including awarding preferential status in the admissions process to descendants of the enslaved, officials said on Wednesday.
Georgetown’s president, John J. DeGioia, who will discuss the measures in a speech on Thursday afternoon, also plans to offer a formal apology, create an institute for the study of slavery and erect a public memorial to the slaves whose labor benefited the institution, including those who were sold in 1838 to help keep the university afloat.
In addition, two campus buildings will be renamed — one for an enslaved African-American man and the other for an African-American educator who belonged to a Catholic religious order. So far, Mr. DeGioia’s plan does not include a provision for offering scholarships to descendants, a possibility that was raised by a university committee whose recommendations were released on Thursday morning. The committee, however, stopped short of calling on the university to provide such financial assistance, as well as admissions preference.
To read full article, go to: Georgetown University Plans Steps to Atone for Slave Past – The New York Times
article by Samara Lynn via blackenterprise.com
An Amazon engineer hailing from Detroit has a novel idea for that city’s unused school buses: turn them into mobile tech labs.
Thomas Phillips presented his idea at last month’s Hack the Central District Cultural Innovation Conference (Hack the CD) in Seattle, according to The Detroit Metro Times. The Aspire Tech Bus would be a school bus modified into a mobile tech lab. In this lab, students will work on coding projects as an actual software development team.
The students will learn basic and advanced topics in full stack Web development: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for front-end development, and NodeJS and ExpressJS for back-end development. Students will also be taught to build a website and a server from scratch. Furthermore, Phillips’ vision extends to teaching career skills as well, such as project management skills, how to create LinkedIn profiles, and how to establish professional email addresses.
The planned curriculum includes two 16-week courses, in total. The mobile lab students will receive a Raspberry Pi computer. By the end of the program, they will have a portfolio of coding projects to present to potential employers.
“I envision this project as a ‘high-tech, voc-tech,’” he says, as giving students high-tech skills before college will better position them for success. “Some of them will choose to pursue their education further at the college/ university level, others will venture into the entrepreneurial sector. Both of these have far reaching implications that reverberate across the world,” said Phillips at the event.
Phillips’s project has already attracted attention, and he will soon launch a Kickstarter campaign for more support. “I want to drive around to different locations in the city and teach web development or other advanced STEM programming concepts to kids in Detroit,” he said in an interview. His goal is to eventually roll out his program to other underserved communities and school districts.
Source: http://www.blackenterprise.com/technology/detroit-engineer-turn-buses-rolling-tech-teaching-labs/
article by Hadassah Egdebi via venturesafrica.com
The invention of a secondary school student has gotten Namibia’s social media abuzz for the right reasons. Simon Petrus has created a mobile phone that works with radio frequencies, no sim card nor airtime credit required. Calls can be made to anyone, anywhere, without interruptions, as long as they are done in an area with radio frequency.
The invention, which took two years for him to complete, was put together using scraps of old television and mobile phones, and required over $2,000 funding from his unemployed parents who sacrificed a lot to ensure their son’s project was successful.
Other than the sim-less phone, Petrus’ invention is a whole unit comprising of a working radio, television, a light bulb, a fan, and a socket. According to reports, the phone is not Petrus’ first invention, just his latest.
Last year, the young man won first place at a competition for young innovators in Namibia for creating a machine that doubles as a seed drier and a cooler. Going by the looks of things, this young man is set to clinch another gold medal in the forthcoming competition, having already won first place at the regional level for his “free-to-call” phone last Friday. “When he won last year, some judges were of the opinion that there was an engineer at home who was helping him. But the only help he has is from us the teachers here at school. He came up with his own project,” Taimi Vatileni, Petrus’s science teacher told New Era.
To read more, go to: A teenager from Namibia invents a “sim-less” and “airtime-free” phone – Ventures Africa
article by Erickka Sy Savane via madamenoire.com
You’ve been thinking about starting a business and every time you come close to doing it your mind hits the brakes. If that’s you, keep reading and you’ll think again about hesitating. Take Nneka, a 27-year-old single mom fresh out of the military for example. She recently launched Innovative Supplies, a line of Black-themed school supplies with notebooks so dope you want to buy 20 for yourself and everyone you know.
Nneka took action and her products sold out. Talk about an entrepreneur’s dream! According to her website, Nneka is about making a positive change in the community and says that this line is her way to reach out to millennials who seek variety and want to be a part of a bigger cause.
The goals of Innovative Supplies, as stated on the site, are to:
- Open and deposit profits into an account with black owned Citizens Trust Bank.
- Donate 40 percent of all profits made from book bag sales to local charities.
- Provide quality products.
- Hire local minority youth.
- Support other small businesses.
- Use economically sourced materials.
- Use environmentally friendly packaging.
To read more, go to: This Mom Created A Line Of Black-Themed School Supplies And Everything Sold Out! | MadameNoire
article by Breanna Edwards via theroot.com
The city of New York is paying out $2.7 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the mother of Avonte Oquendo, the 14 year-old autistic child whose body was found in New York’s East River in January 2014 three months after he disappeared from his Queens, N.Y., school, the New York Daily News reports.
The suit accused school officials and the New York Police Department’s school safety division of negligence for not monitoring the exit doors of the school and not properly supervising Avonte, who was nonverbal and also had a history of being a flight risk.
“The loss of a child is a tragedy no family should endure, and hopefully, the resolution of this legal matter will bring some measure of solace to Avonte’s family.” the city’s Law Department spokesperson, Nicholas Paolucci, said.
“The Department of Education has taken a number of steps and is dedicated to taking every measure possible to prevent something like this from occurring again,” Paolucci added.
To read full article, go to: http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/07/new-yorck-city-settles-with-family-of-avonte-oquendo-for-2700000