Claretian Associates- MAPSCorps

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The best sign of progress in my neighborhood is less kids on the streets and more in community centers/after-school programs

South Chicago resident

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Success is overcoming the statistics

36-year-old male

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Success is challenging and requires community support

45-year-old male

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Success is having the opportunity to see the age of 21

21-year-old male

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What does success mean to you?

Personal SWOT analysis from some of our students: 

Strengths that help achieve success

Weaknesses that could get in the way of success 

Opportunities that you are not currently using, but could take advantage of to achieve success

Threats you need to avoid if you want to achieve success

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What kinds of success do our community assets promote? 

Today mappers looked for community assets in Roseland that promote success for local residents. After each mapper shared what examples of success-promoting assets they came across to the rest of the group, we found that they all fall into one of the following categories: health, education, and religion.

The students believe that these assets and the kinds of success they promote are readily available for community members; however, they do not think that enough people take advantage of them. We discussed why a person might not use all the resources available to them in their community and determined that simply getting to the site can be a barrier. Whether it be an issue concerning transportation or safety, people are not always able to move around freely within their own neighborhoods to access all of its resources. 

Among all of these success-promoting assets, the students feel very strongly about developing the local Chicago Public Schools. Many students shared how their schools lack basic supplies (i.e. up-to-date textbooks, dictionaries, whiteboards, etc.) while their athletic teams receive brand new equipment every year. Though having new cleats for the soccer team is important, the students feel that if schools had more funding, they would be able to not only keep up with their athletic programs but also with academics. Then the schools would be more effective in promoting success for all students, not just the magnet kids &/or athletes. 

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What does "success" mean to community residents? 

Our mappers interviewed community members while mapping in Roseland. These are the themes and keywords from the responses they collected. 

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South Side Success

How is success popularly represented?

In order to answer this question, mappers photographed or tweeted about things that they felt were trying to indicate what success is out in the community. The torrential rains that fell upon them made it difficult to focus on this question during the day, but the students were still able to engage in an afternoon discussion about the different success indicators they have come across so far this summer. After creating a list including all examples from the entire group, all students voted whether or not they considered each item to be a true sign of success. Below are the results ranked in order by percentages of agreement. 

Schools | 75%

Clothing stores | 75%

Open businesses | 60%

"Don't shoot, I want to grow up" signs | 60% 

Health Centers | 50%

Renovations (parks and streets) | 50% 

Father/son quality time | 30%

Religious spaces | 25%

Community Centers | 25%

Gyms | 25%

Well-kept lawns | 20%

Parks | 20%

Community gardens | 15%

Daycares | 15%

Success = education + style + money + safety + health + good infrastructure 

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How do local residents perceive their neighborhood? results from our survey of Avalon Park 

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#Southsideis caring in some places, with restrictions 

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#Southsideis our parks

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#Southsideis basketball 

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#Southsideis too cool to look at the camera

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#Southsideis violence