Gang Awareness

April 2010

La Vozes co-sponsored an evening of local gang information for parents. Wahluke SRO (School Resource Officer) Grant County Sheriff Deputy L. Sanchez led a 2 ½ hour presentation to 100 community members on the growing local gang problem. Various presenters (including former gang members) were on hand to discuss how they entered gang life ad what local parents can do to keep their children form entering gangs. Youth were not allowed to attend the meeting, as pictures of local gang members (those who place their pics on facebook, twitter, and other multimedia sites) were shown to the community to enforce that idea that gang members are in the area, and many local youth claim affiliation to these gangs.

LEAP Conference

February 2010

Six members of La Vozes group attended the Latino Educational Achievement Project (LEAP). Attending various workshops with the goal that “all students will graduate from high school with the skills, acknowledged and confidence needed for success in post secondary education or in today’s information age and technology-driven workplace”. LEAP activities included:
•A legislative Day
•Student Leadership forums
•Public Education Workshops
•Advocating at the State Legislatures
•Educating and Advising Students how to create change in their communities using local government channels.

WSU Sociology Students at Work for You!

Sociology 433, an undergraduate class at Washington State University, has been researching options and resources for topics that are important to your rural communities as you work to reduce poverty. Topics include: affordable housing, neighborhood safety, youth activities and much, much more.

Your community may be in contact with one of these teams, but all of their research may be relevant to the issues you are addressing. Click to the Horizons website http://www.horizons.wsu.edu/project/horizons3/community.html to read about their work.

Community Gang Awerness Seminar

The Horizons Program, Voz de Los Jovenes and the Wahluke School District sponosred an evening workshop to inform the community on the growing gang problems and what parents and other community members should look for and whay they can do to help in the preventiatve efforts to stem the growing problem.

Nearly 200 community members were in attendance.

Study Circles

After completion of the facilitator training and the several community meeting the following action items were identified:

• Establishment of a Horizons Club at the Wahluke High School
• Improve and/or increase local Public Transportation
• Increase the understanding that higher education plays in reducing poverty, and how it can be accessed
• Increase participation in local governmental agencies by youth.
• Increase knowledge of the gang presence (and preventative measures) to the community
• Increase knowledge of how parent can access local educational establishment.
• Increase community knowledge of existing social service programs and how to better access their services
• Increase the communities knowledge and prevention efforts in teen pregnancy, domestic violence and other factors that contribute to generational poverty.
• Increase the knowledge and provide the skills that help in the communities grant writing and fundraising efforts to increase community sustainability.

Community Labels

Please do not delete this post. NWAF and WSU Horizons requires labels to be added to each post.