Bayview Hunters Point Community Fund Capacity Building and Reflection Retreat

1. Bayview Hunters Point Community FundCapacity Building and Reflection Retreat October 26-27 2007

2. What is a Theory of Change? • A theory of change is an approach to program development and evaluation assumes that underlying any social intervention is an explicit or latent "theory" about how the intervention is meant to change outcomes (Weiss, 1995; Schorr, 1995). • In the most basic form, a TOC is a set of if then propositions that articulate how to achieve desired outcomes.

3. Why do we need a Theory of Change? • Allows for the you to better understand if what you do produces what you want. • Is a way to develop program strategies that meet the unique needs of the population you serve. • Provides a way to look beyond the day to day and see the issues in a broader perspective.

4. Why do we need a Theory of Change? • .

5. Developing Nia Statements? • Before we can develop organizational TOC we have to understand what constitutes our own TOC for our lives. • On the sheet of paper or card, respond to the following questions. • Who are you? • Where are you going? • What will it take to get you there?

6. Conceptualizing Black Youth in Urban America Social Disorganization Thesis

7. How are black youth conceptualized in research?

8. Research on African American youth is dominated by three prevailing themes • Problems • Focus is on descriptions of various problems of black youth. These problems range from violence, substance abuse, school failure. • Prevention • Focus is on strategies to prevent particular problems. • Pathology • Focus is on ways to understand various problems facing youth. For example, the term “at risk” focuses on factors the contribute to pathological life threatening behaviors

9. Societal Level Family Level Neighborhood Level Reframing Research on African American YouthSocial Ecological Model • Ecological model • What are the factors in a young person’s environment that promote or inhibit healthy development?

10. Toward a Radical Pedagogy for Building Emancipatory Knowledge

11. Building Emancipatory Knowledge Critical Self Consciousness Before, I came here [LE] I didn't know what the term nigga meant and I didn't really care. I would say ‘what’s up, nigga’! ‘What you doin’ nigga’? I had no idea of what the term meant or where it came from. I didn’t know how our ancestors felt when the white man called us nigger. I thought about it differently after this activity – how it must have felt to be treated like we were dogs, like we were animals, to be tied up and pulled around in the dark. It hurts to know that our people have experienced this. But you don’t realize this until you experience something like this activity, even for just an hour. I learned that we call each other that word without knowing the price black folks paid. “

12. Building Emancipatory Knowledge Critical Community Consciousness I realized that we are dealing with some of the same stuff. Not having our fathers around, seeing our mothers work three and four jobs, and having seen your best friend get smoked. I never knew that we were all dealing with some of the same stuff. We are from different turfs in here [LE youth center] and out on the streets we would never even speak to each other because I’m from West Oakland, and he might be from the East (East Oakland) and that’s enough to keep us from connecting because the East and West are enemies. We might even be shooting at each other if we were in the streets. But here we get to see a different side of each other. We get to see the deeper stuff that’s goin’ with all of us. “

13. Building Emancipatory Knowledge Socio-political Consciousness At first I did sell weed, but then it was like, it was like, it’s like I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with it. Then I came around all these folks talking about political stuff. When I started, it was almost like a training ground, like boot camp in the sense that you come from the community that has all these problems and you are impacted by these conditions that we did not create. Then we look at what we can do to change this stuff—we don’t have the resources. Just because we live here doesn’t mean that we don’t have the same rights as the people in the hills. “

14. Building Emancipatory Knowledge in five steps • Foster clear socio-political vision. • Develop a Nia (purpose) statement. • Connect all lessons to quality of life issues. • Build and support “critical” caring relationships. • Encourage and support youth in; self, community and global change activities. “

15. Conclusions • Knowledge is not a goal in and of itself so much as it is a path to wisdom. It bestows not so much as privilege as duty. • And it requires that we teach even as we learn and we learn even as we teach in order to achieve a not so much a higher standard of life for oneself, but rather to create a higher quality of life for us all. • A. Sivanidan “A Different Kind of Hunger” “