Keys to creating a safe community

Conversation between Keith Carson and George Y. Pearson

Keith Carson urges people to expand their concept of what constitutes a family. Who and what constitutes a family today?

How can young people learn to make healthy and safe choices? Most black children live without a father. Being a single mother is hard and the mothers are stressed and overburdened with work, their own feelings of being abandoned. Children need stability and guidance. They have to be cared for and they need to feel safe. The key is access to programs for emotional support, access to guidance counselors, and access to voting.

We need programs that provide youths with the stability they may not find in their immediate family. They are needed if we wish to build a healthy and safe community. One of the major concerns youths have today is violence. (OYM )

The key for an improved community is to provide a structured environment for young people so they are taught early on about the healthy options that are available to them.

It is also important not to disenfranchise any one segment of the population. Everyone must have the respect of the community, and must feel included and cared for.

Understanding of cultural differences is the prerequisite to being able to launch programs that encourage mutual learning and understanding.

Each population segment should know and be aware about their own cultural and religious roots and learn more about each other's cultures. Everyone who lives in a diverse community should feel that they are viewed as having equal rights.

"It takes a village to raise a child" old African proverb