H.A.R.C Presentation

Y.N.M.I.
(Youth Neighborhood Mapping Initiative)

Good Morning! My Name Is Skyler Harris and I live in the Messick-Buntyn District, and for a few weeks now, I’ve been working with The Youth Neighborhood Mapping Initiative, along with Selena, Shay, Jeremy, Marshanique, Marquez, and Patrick. So far, through this program, I’ve not only learned about the landscaping and mapping of my neighborhood, but also about some of the history of Messick-Buntyn, and Orange Mound as well. In fact, I learned that the Southern Railroad was the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River.
But about the Mapping Initiative: We’re a group of teens who live in various parts of the University District and have an interest in making positive changes in our community. We are working with a team of city planning students, professors, and professionals to identify the pros and cons of our neighborhoods and share our thoughts to come up with ways to solve problems and get the community involved.

II. What we are doing?
A. Gathering Data/ Information
We visit numerous parts of Memphis focusing on what one area has that we could use to better or be an asset to our community.
B. Blog Entries
We created a blog page to tell about what we do on a daily basis. It also includes our inputs and opinions on what we did and how we feel about it. Our goal is to keep people in our neighborhood informed about assets and liabilities in our neighborhoods.
C. Learning New things

We have learned so many new terms that refer to city planning and landscaping. We also learn a lot about the history of our neighborhood
We are interested in changing the community because we want it to be a better place for our children and ourselves. Our community used to be an example of a livable community but through the years, drugs and violence have corrupted our neighborhoods and our youth. Through the years, people have moved away to less violent areas of the city. The evidence of people leaving the neighborhoods is visible in the multitude of abandoned houses seen on each street. The assets of our neighborhoods are hidden because of the obvious liabilities I just spoke about. Because of the evident problems in our neighborhoods we see everyday, we want outsiders to see the positives in our neighborhoods and this is what we are working towards this summer.

In the hustle and bustle of everyday life we often forget to give back to our neighborhoods. As teenagers we believe we must take back our neighborhoods and become role models for our peers, siblings, and parents. By identifying the assets and liabilities in our neighborhood we can create plans to improve them. These plans can benefit community residents now and build stronger neighborhoods for the future generations. We need to improve the community for all generations. We want to give our community a peaceful environment where everyone can relax and enjoy themselves. We want to improve to give future generations a more positive setting, and a better outlook on life. Motivating them to look up to more and achieve past the obvious high school diploma.

We are putting a plan together to deal with the abandoned houses and make our community a more livable place. We would like to see abandoned houses torn down, and child care centers and affordable housing built. We’d like to see communities cutting out noise pollution, emphasizing the code enforcement rules, and putting an end to the littering. Abandoned houses are a haven for drugs, prostitution, rape, and other malicious crimes. Child care centers and affordable housing would be a much better alternative.

Our project is based on a call to action to the youth. We basically want to influence our young people to get involved with the community. We also want to get the community to realize the importance of the youth. We have different views of certain situations, which mean we also have different solutions. Our input is very valuable to the community, and is needed so we could reach out to more youth. We also want to reach out to the present generation, because if we can build on our present it will make a better future. We need the elderly to provide and watch over our youth. Our neighborhood should be able to look out for each other. If we could get the youth involved with the community, then that would mean less youth on the streets. We believe a change is needed, because the death rate of youth in Memphis is too high. If we can all get together and use our ideas, and your ideas we could see an improved community.