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Posts published in “Teens”

Website Publishes Top 25 Scholarships for Women in 2013-2014

By goodblacknews on August 19, 2013

female graduatesBillions of dollars in scholarships are available every year to women, and one web site,ScholarshipsOnline.org, is helping women apply for these financial aid opportunities. The web site has recently published the top 25 scholarships available for women and girls in 2013-2014.
Scholarships are monetary gifts awarded to students who demonstrate outstanding academic or athletic ability. Because of increasing expenses for tuition, boarding and books, more and more organizations and corporations are giving away scholarships as a part of their public or community affairs programs.
Federal government agencies, local government agencies, and educational institutions themselves are also giving away millions of dollars in scholarships every year. In total, it is estimated that more than $5 billion in scholarships will be given away this year, and perhaps even more next year.
To view the Top 25 Scholarships Available For Women in 2013-2014, visit:
www.scholarshipsonline.org/p/top-women-scholarships-grants.html
To search hundreds of other 2013-2014 scholarships, visit:
www.ScholarshipsOnline.org
article via eurweb.com
 

Girls From Displaced Families Get Introduction to College and Engineering at Cal State Long Beach

By goodblacknews on August 13, 2013
1495117_me_Homeless_Engineering_01_FO.jpg
Courtney Shumate, 10, of Compton, is spending a week living at Cal State Long Beach, learning about college life and engineering. Twenty-nine girls participated in the program August 8, 2013, in Long Beach. During this workshop, the participants built prosthetic arms. (Francine Orr, Los Angeles Times / August 7, 2013)
Submerged underwater, a robot built out of PVC pipes snaked back and forth near some foam “sea sponges.”  Next to the small wading pool, 11-year-old Nailah Lewis intently worked a set of controls on top of a wired plastic box. Her electrical engineering experiment had entered its final testing phase.  The task: Design a tool to pick up objects underwater.  Around the pool, a group of young girls leaned over the edge, dangling their hands in the water and shouting encouragement. Nailah’s 8-year-old sister, Ayailah, called out: “Come on, Ni Ni!”

Watching proudly nearby with a camera in hand was Nailah’s mother, Dana Lewis, 39, who is determined to see her both young daughters go to college.  She found a positive motivating force in a new Cal State Long Beach program.  The program, “Engineering Girls — It Takes a Village,” is unusual in its focus on recruiting young girls, ages 9 to 15, from displaced families.  Over the last four months, school officials worked with the Century Villages at Cabrillo, a transitional housing community, to recruit girls and bring them to the university in August for one week of engineering workshops.
Officials said that the program, which began Aug. 5 and ended Sunday, was specifically designed for girls because the engineering field is dominated by men. But coordinators also aimed to expose an underrepresented community with limited opportunities in science, math and engineering.  It came along with a full taste of college life, with the girls sleeping in the dorms and eating three all-you-can-eat meals a day.
Of the 29 girls who participated, 25 came from homeless families. All were African American, and most lived in single-parent homes.  Three were being raised by their grandparents.  “A lot of these girls are underprivileged, so an experience like this not only changes and impacts their lives, but re-creates their future,” said Lewis, who was one of several women who accompanied their daughters and participated in the program. Lewis moved into the Villages with her mother and two daughters when it opened five years ago.

'Mandatory Minimum' Sentences to End for Many Non-Violent Drug Offenders

By goodblacknews on August 12, 2013

Eric Holder
SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors will no longer seek long, “mandatory minimum” sentences for many low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, under a major shift in policy aimed at turning around decades of explosive growth in the federal prison population, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced today.  The nation’s top law enforcement official called for a “fundamentally new approach” to enforcing drug laws in order to help alleviate prison overcrowding and reduce race-based disparities in drug prosecutions.

“It’s clear – as we come together today – that too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason. It’s clear, at a basic level, that 20th-century criminal justice solutions are not adequate to overcome our 21st-century challenges,” Holder told the annual meeting of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates in San Francisco. “And it is well past time to implement common sense changes that will foster safer communities from coast to coast.”
The new policy involves the prosecution of low-level, non-violent drug offenders who have no ties to gangs, cartels or other large-scale organizations. They will be charged with offenses that — like those for most crimes — specify a range of months or years, allowing judges to decide sentence length.  Holder has long argued that mandatory minimums are contributing to the fact that the number of inmates in federal prisons has increased by 800 percent since 1980, far faster than the growth of the U.S. population.

New York City's Stop-and-Frisk Practice Violated Rights of Minorities, Judge Rules

By goodblacknews on August 12, 2013
Leroy Downes, a plaintiff in the stop-and-frisk trial, spoke at a news conference after a federal judge ruled that the practice violated the rights of minorities. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

In a repudiation of a major element in the Bloomberg administration’s crime-fighting legacy, a federal judge has found that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York, and called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms.  In a blistering decision issued on Monday, the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, found that the Police Department had “adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling” that targeted young minority men for stops. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the city would appeal the ruling, angrily accusing the judge of deliberately not giving the city “a fair trial.”

The mayor cited the benefits of stop-and-frisk, crediting the tactic for making the city safer and for ridding the streets of thousands of illegal guns.  But in her ruling, Judge Scheindlin found that in doing so, the police systematically stopped innocent people in the street without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing.  The stops, which soared in number over the last decade as crime continued to decline, demonstrated a widespread disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, as well as the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, according to the 195-page decision.

Judge Scheindlin’s criticism extended beyond the conduct of police officers; in holding the city liable for a battery of constitutional violations, the judge found that top police officials acted with deliberate indifference. She said that police commanders were content to dismiss allegations of racial profiling as “a myth created by the media.”  Citing statements by the mayor and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, Judge Scheindlin accused the city of using stop-and-frisk as a checkpoint-style policing tactic, with the intent of deterring minorities from carrying guns on the street.

“I also conclude that the city’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner,” she wrote.  The judge designated an outside lawyer, Peter L. Zimroth, to monitor the Police Department’s compliance with the Constitution.

Judge Scheindlin also ordered a number of other remedies, including a pilot program in which officers in at least five precincts across the city will wear body-worn cameras in an effort to record street encounters. She also ordered a “joint remedial process” — in essence, a series of community meetings — to solicit public input on how to reform stop-and-frisk.

Youth-Led Campaigns Continue to Seek Justice for Trayvon Martin, Refute CNN's Don Lemon

By goodblacknews on August 7, 2013
dream-defenders-16x9
At left, American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist Harry Belafonte, Jr. listens as Dream Defenders Executive Director Phillip Agnew, right, raises his fist as he leads a chant calling for a special session Friday, July 26, 2013 in the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)

In wake of the Trayvon Martin murder trial, movements led by young people who embrace hoodies, tattoos, hip-hop culture and rebellion are proving that a powerful voice in this nation can defy stereotypes or expectations.  While media pundits and lawmakers continue to bicker over the destructive ethos of American society, organizations like the Dream Defenders, the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice and the Trayvon Martin Foundation have taken their concerns to the streets.  They’re camped out. They’re marching Washington. They’re demanding that laws be changed and they’re forcing the government to listen.

An uprising not unlike civil rights movements of the past, these youth activists have utilized social media, new technology and the provocative antics of hip-hop to make a difference, and they don’t intend to stop.
#Ever.
“We are powerful because we are a product of our generation,” Ciara Taylor, political director for the Dream Defenders, tells theGrio. “We show the world that yes, you can listen to rap music, and yes, you can sag your pants, yes, you can have tattoos and wear snapbacks, but you can also stand up for yourself and your community.”
The Dream Defenders: #TAKEOVERFL
After occupying the Florida State House for three weeks to demand repeal of the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law, Taylor’s team demonstrated their influence this weekend when Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford announced he would hold hearings on the subject this fall.  The victory arrives after the organization, primarily made of twenty-somethings and college students, rallied legislators, drafted letters and sought approval from the Secretary of State to bring the matter to its feet.  According to Tallahassee.com, the protest has cost the government $182,362, including $68,777 in overtime for law enforcement officers.  “I’m thinking I’m going to lose my job,” says Taylor, who works part-time at the American Civil Liberties Union and has taken significant time off to lead the protest.

A $147 Million Signal of Faith in Atlanta’s Public Schools

By goodblacknews on August 7, 2013
The new North Atlanta High School features amenities like a video production center and a cafeteria resembling a mall food court. (Dustin Chambers for The New York Times)

ATLANTA — The most expensive public high school ever built in Georgia opens Wednesday in an old I.B.M. office building.
With 11 stories, a 900-car parking deck and views fit for a corporate executive, the school, North Atlanta High, looks very much like the fancy office buildings and glittery shopping strips that populate its Buckhead community.  The school cost about $147 million. That is small change compared with the Robert F. Kennedy high school complex in Los Angeles, built in 2010 for $578 million — a figure critics liked to point out was more expensive than Beijing’s Olympic stadium.
But in the Deep South, where the median cost of a new high school is $38.5 million, it might as well be the Taj Mahal.  As a result, some in this antigovernment, tax-sensitive part of the country are grumbling, especially since the project was $50 million over its original budget.  “The raw numbers themselves in terms of the cost of construction should give pause to any taxpayer,” said Edward Lindsey, a lawyer and a Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives.
But for the Atlanta Public Schools, which are just beginning to recover from a cheating scandal that in March brought indictments against 35 educators, including a former superintendent, the shining new school is being pitched as an important step toward redemption.  About 48,400 students will attend public school in Atlanta this year, about 400 fewer than last year.  “We have a special obligation here,” said Howard E. Taylor, the new principal. “The district is digging out of a historic crisis.”
He and other educators say that the new school building is an opportunity to show that a large, urban public high school can be a viable alternative to the rising tide of charter schools, voucher systems and private education.  Some of the 1,400 students who will attend the school this year come from the wealthiest families in the region, but others, Mr. Taylor said, are homeless. Nearly half are black. About 27 percent are white and 20 percent are Hispanic. They speak more than 40 languages.  “If there was ever a model for an urban high school, this is it,” he said.

Michelle Obama's Newest Initiative: Using Hip-Hop to Fight Obesity (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on August 6, 2013

First lady Michelle Obama is distributing a hip-hop album, complete with music videos, to fight obesity at schools across the country.

First lady Michelle Obama is distributing a hip-hop album, complete with music videos, to fight obesity at schools across the country.  In June, first lady Michelle Obama appeared in a hip-hop music video that featured rapper Doug E. Fresh, singer-songwriter Jordin Sparks and TV medical personality Dr. Oz. The catchy song urged kids to “work hard/eat right” and “tell somebody/it’s your body/c’mon.” The song was just the first of a 19-track album, the majority of which are hip-hop, to be released by the Partnership for a Healthier America, the anti-obesity nonprofit that launched in conjunction with Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! anti-obesity campaign, and a New York-based group called Hip Hop Public Health.  
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvm7Fqbpqcg&w=560&h=315]

The full album, which includes songs with names like “Veggie Luv,” by Monifah and J Rome, “Hip Hop LEAN,” by Artie Green, and “Give Myself a Try,” by Ryan Beatty, will be released on Sept. 30.  Let’s Move! Executive Director and White House assistant chef Sam Kass says the White House is fully behind the initiative to use hip-hop – and other genres of music – as a tool to get kids to live healthier lives.
“Cultural leaders and visionaries in our country can give these messages to kids in a way that’s not preachy. Kids are going to be dancing and listening to the music,” he says. “I think hip-hop in particular – so many kids love hip-hop. It’s such a core part of our culture …and particularly in the African-American community and the Latino community which is being disproportionately affected by those health issues.”
African-American children are more than 50 percent more likely to be overweight or obese compared with white children, and Hispanic children are nearly 30 percent more likely, according to a 2008 studypublished in Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine
If all goes according to plan, some 10 of the 19 songs on the new album will be made into music videos, much like the hip-hop video in which Michelle Obama appeared. Those music videos will then be distributed to schools across the nation – starting with 40 schools in New York City, and then to schools in San Antonio, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. The hope is that teachers will use the videos during recess, physical education classes or even passing periods to encourage kids to get moving.

Teen Alanna Wall Founds Polished Girlz to Give Manicures to Girls with Special Needs

By goodblacknews on August 4, 2013

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmd7V0dqL64&w=560&h=315]

Polished Girlz Founder Alanna Wall

CAUSE: Well aware of the simple pleasure that a manicure brings, Alanna Wall decided to go into hospitals and treat girls with special needs to a beauty pick-me-up. What started as a bonding experience for local teenage girls has grown into a national non-profit. Now, youth volunteers across the country are giving manicures in hospitals, Down syndrome associations, and children’s medical centers. 
Beyond painting the latest nail art trends, Alanna and her team also teach girls with special needs about how hand washing can reduce the spread of infection.
EFFECT: Polished Girlz has expanded to four states and served 600 girls this year. Alanna has expanded her brand by starting a line of Polish Girlz nail gloss.
GET INVOLVED: Go to PolishedGirlz.org to learn more about the non-profit.
article by Sierra Tishgart via teenvogue.com

Florida House Speaker Agrees to Hold Hearings on Stand Your Ground Law

By goodblacknews on August 3, 2013

DreamDefenders
TALLAHASSEE — Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford announced Friday that he will order hearings this fall on the state’s “stand your ground” law, a victory for the young protesters known as the Dream Defenders who have spent the past two weeks protesting at the Capitol.  “It’s a critical first step,” said Phillip Agnew, executive director of the Dream Defenders. “We’ve been here for three weeks. We know Democracy takes time. Progress takes time.”
They shouldn’t celebrate too hard. Weatherford assigned the task of chairing the hearings to a staunch supporter of the law, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach.  “I don’t support changing one damn comma of the stand your ground law,” Gaetz said Friday.  “It would be reactionary and dangerous to make Floridians less safe to pacify uninformed protesters.”  Gaetz, the 31-year-old son of Senate President Don Gaetz, talks tough on crime. He passed a bill this year that expedited death row cases and has been known for pushing conservative causes popular in his Panhandle district. He expects the hearings to draw national attention, and he says he’s ready for the debate.
“I want to have hearings, it’s a good idea,” Gaetz said. “Right now, the only voices on stand your ground are coming from the radical left. I want an opportunity to give a full-throated defense of the law.”  He said he’s not sure when he’ll hold the hearings, how long they’ll last, or how they’ll be structured.  But he said his bias shouldn’t deter those holding out hope that hearings can lead to changes in the law.  “Bills I don’t support occasionally pass my committee,” he said.
Weatherford agreed to the hearings in an op-ed published Friday. “Our evaluation of its effectiveness should be guided by objective information, not by political expediency,” he wrote. “Does the law keep the innocent safer? Is it being applied fairly? Are there ways we can make this law clearer and more understandable.”

White House Recognizes Tech Leaders As ‘Champions of Change for Tech Inclusion’

By goodblacknews on August 3, 2013

BQh2fIYCMAAL-UvThe White House gathered a group of non-profit workers, educators, and startup founders to be honored on Wednesday as “Champions of Change for Tech Inclusion.” As part of the White House Tech Inclusion initiative, the event recognized tech leaders working to expand opportunities within the tech field for young innovators, specifically minorities, women and girls, and individuals underserved or underrepresented.
Kimberly Bryant, founder and executive director of Black Girls Code, Kathryn Finney, founder and managing director of digitalundivided, and founder and executive director at iUrbanTeen Deena Pierott are among the 11 change-agents that were honored during the event.  President Obama and his administration are committed to expanding opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), vowing to increase the number of STEM graduates by one million over the next ten years. That prompted the chief executive to launch White House Tech Inclusion efforts, which are geared toward providing tech skills and opportunities to the next generation of innovators in the United States. Comedian and author of New York Times bestseller How To Be Black Baratunde Thurston served as moderator for the Champions of Change discussion.
In January, the Obama administration organized the White House Tech Inclusion Summit where five new programs were announced.
article by Janel Martinez via blackenterprise.com