Title:
San Francisco Educator Works to Keep Young People
'Alive and Free'
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
More than half of young black men in the United
States do not finish high school. Many grow up
without fathers and in neighborhoods with gangs,
drugs and violence. Sixty percent of those who drop
out of school have spent time in jail by the age of
thirty-five.Joe Marshall co-founded the Omega Boys
Club in San Francisco, California, twenty-three
years ago. Mister Marshall tries to give boys -- and
girls -- a safe refuge and a chance at a better
future. Every week, he has two basic messages for
his young students: "Stop the violence" and "Don't
do drugs."Mister Marshall spent twenty-five years as
a teacher and administrator in San Francisco. He
taught math in middle school and expected to see his
best students go to college.But he said a lot of his
former students ended up dead or in prison for
selling drugs or being involved in gangs. And many
girls ended up getting pregnant. The Omega Boys Club
serves more than four hundred young people every
year. Two times a week, it offers after-school
classes in math, reading, family and life skills,
and college preparation. In many ways, it serves as
a kind of family. It provides teenagers with
structure and support. Joe Marshall has a doctorate
in psychology. He sees gangs and violence as a
disease that needs to be dealt with as a public
health problem. He tells young people to follow some
new rules for living. These rules will decrease
their chances of ending up dead or in prison and
increase their chances of staying alive and free.
The club represents the headquarters of what he
calls the "alive and free movement." But his most
effective way to spread his anti-violence message is
through radio. In nineteen ninety-one, Joe Marshall
started "Street Soldiers," a weekly call-in show. It
airs on popular hip-hop station KMEL in San
Francisco.Marlena was one of the graduates of the
Omega Boys Club. She is at Southern University right
now, going into her third year. She talked about
what she had learned by coming to Omega.The club
provides guidance and financial assistance to help
students stay in school. Over ninety percent of
members who were accepted into college have
graduated.Twelve other American cities have copied
the program. Joe Marshall has been invited to speak
in Canada, Nigeria, South Africa and Thailand. He
turned sixty-three this year. He says he has no
thoughts of retiring any time soon. And that's the
VOA Special English Education Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
