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March 16, 2010
SALVADORANS MEET TO IMPROVE THE BRENTWOOD COMMUNITY
By Profesor Martin Danenberg "El Quijote del GED"
Bring the police cars into Brentwood, but give the Practice Test to all of the youth who have dropped out of school. Lock up the gang members? Lock 'em up with the GED.
Salvadorans met to discuss programs and bring forth their ideas and feelings about the violence and aftermath in Brentwood. I was really pleased to see Luis Mendez and Sergio Argueta at the meeting. Why? Mendez has an organization of 5,000 soccer players and Argueta is a gang specialist. A member of the Argueta team wants me to help his friend who has recently arrived from El Salvador. Mendez has been helping youth to be rescued by supporting them in the courts and providing society with that all important community service project that turns lives around. Sure culture and pride in community are important because everyone has to play his role in helping the community, but we are not going to change the community by positive words and only helping people one by one (or even two by two as it says in the Bible). We are going to mobilize the community thirty by thirty or fifty by fifty. The same thing happened in Harlem last year, people were talking about Princeton and poetry and then a youth talked about the violence, the poverty, and the other major problems. This is what I want to hear from the youth. The youth are speaking out about the fear and violence in their communities and the meeting in Brentwood was not a disappointment, especially since I was able to present information on the GED on Wheels project I want to launch and tell the Brentwood community that we can successfully mobilize the community to lower the dropout rate from high school, help parent and child accelerate in the acquisition of English, and cut down on the gangs through the GED and other opportunities.
My contacts in Washington. D.C. know that the gap is growing people ethnic groups. Unemployment among Hispanics and African-Americans is reaching the level of unemployment that existed during the Great Depression. Education is the solution and I will be partnering with the largest organizations in the country to produce change. This has been the problem. It took at least seven years for me to wake up the City Council of New York. It has been over five years since I started writing about bringing the Spanish GED to Latin America and the Caribbean. The disaster in Haiti and my recent work forming the GED Committee for Haiti have quickly brought me into contact with the highest level officials at the Organization of American States in Washington, D. C. and I will be attending the Haitians in the Diaspora Forum on March 21. I am connecting with Hispanic organizations that are helping to achieve Immigration Reform at the march the same day. If I succeed in helping Haiti by bringing the French GED and other programs there, the OAS will also cooperate with the Spanish speaking community by bringing the GED to Latin America.
I see some positive movement in Brentwood, but we are all concerned that nothing really will happen. The police have their plan. I see the Facebook of BRAVE and some people want to divide the community, asking for the ICE to come in to pick up the undocumented immigrants. This is what I want. Picture police cars driving into all sections of Brentwood to pick up gang members and other youth making trouble or causing violence, but think of the "GED on Wheels" helping all of those youth, sometimes giving the four hour OPT or Official Practice Test to those youth and advocating for their GED help if they get arrested and/or incarcerated.
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
New:
www.mygedhotline.com
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.ahorre.com
www.aspira.org
Profesor Martin Danenberg March 16, 2010 06:36 PM