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.