VOICES: Target capital, accelerate partnerships, center those affected

Vanessa Ward, president of Omega CDC, at the launch of Promise Neighborhoods. (CONTRIBUTED)

Vanessa Ward, president of Omega CDC, at the launch of Promise Neighborhoods. (CONTRIBUTED)
Ideas & Voices
By Geoffrey Canada
April 30, 2023
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In Dayton, and in cities across the country, the zip code where you are born is the greatest determinant of life expectancy, educational attainment, and career advancement. Faced with this reality, young people, and families in urban neighborhoods like Dayton struggle to hang on to hope for a brighter future. As hope fades, we find that there is a deterioration in the physical health and emotional wellbeing of children and families.

Learn to Earn Dayton is proving that there is a way to keep hope alive. The NorthWest Dayton Partnership, a community-centered, power-building and systems change initiative is taking a different approach by insisting that those most disenfranchised are part of the conversations and power is centered in decision-making by those directly impacted.

Led by a resident steering committee, the purpose of the NorthWest Dayton Partnership initiative is to break generational poverty, end the disinvestment in communities and increase access to opportunities. In collaboration with organizations like Omega Community Development Corporation, Preschool Promise, and CityWide Development, residents are focused on developing a Power of Place community vision that utilizes a two-generation approach to increase well-being, economic mobility, racial equity, advocacy for systems change, and quality educational support for northwest Dayton families. This work isn’t being done in a silo: twenty-eight local organizations are co-creating strategies with residents that will strengthen families and the neighborhoods they call home.

The initiative led by Learn to Earn Dayton incorporates the lessons we learned when we created the Harlem Children’s Zone. We set out to rebuild Central Harlem, block by block. As a result of our success, President Obama used the Harlem Children’s Zone as a model to create “Promise Neighborhoods.”

This year, the Omega Community Development Corporation received nearly $29M “Promise Neighborhoods” federal award, to create the “Hope Zone” in Northwest Dayton. With continued support from Learn to Earn Dayton, they will implement a comprehensive strategy aligned with the vision created by residents through the NorthWest Dayton Partnership to bring hope to 3,400 children, and 6,700 families in 17 neighborhoods.

Learn to Earn Dayton’s recent Systems Transformation designation from national collective action organization StriveTogether, recognizes their ability to leverage the nationally validated change framework to target capital, accelerate partnerships, and center the voices of students and families. They are demonstrating what it takes to align critical systems change elements, in a way that should be a model for the region and a national exemplar. Place Matters. Hope Matters.

Geoffrey Canada is the Founder and President of the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Geoffrey Canada is the Founder and President of the Harlem Children’s Zone. (CONTRIBUTED)

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About the Author

Geoffrey Canada