Are service providers overdosing Bedford-Stuyvesant with affordable housing we can’t afford to have anymore? A nonprofit organization founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph has provided transitional and permanent housing for 30 years, twenty-seven of them in Community Board 3. Now they want to create affordable/supportive apartments at 273-277 Kosciusko, including 26 apartments for formerly homeless women with a history of incarceration, graduating from Providence House’s other transitional housing programs. They say 40% of the housing will be available to neighborhood residents who meet low income criteria, but its the 60% we’re concerned about. We believe everyone should have a place to go. But how many more transitional places can Bedford Stuyvesant hold. Not to mention, the personal demons that transitional residents face — echoed all around them in the many transitional, supportive and social services facilities in the area. By bringing in even more, there is the creation of an enabling community. And if each housing area has only a 20% recidivism rate, then with the concentration of facilities creates a critical mass of negativity, posing a threat to the family-centered strivings of the hosting community. That the provider wants to bring former Bedford-Stuyvesant residents back to where they’ll find former acquaintances, seems to suggest Providence is tone deaf to the nature of toxic relationships. We know there’s no use in recommending Providence build academies and learning centers. But this is exactly what we need — institutions that encourage healthy life choices and real independent living. Now that’s something we can afford to have in this community.
MacDonough Street Update,Department of Buildings: "Stay Granted Through March 3"
Markowitz: Lauds Partnerships that Preserve Neighborhoods
By Bernice Elizabeth Green
Meanwhile, the community and Borough President Marty Markowitz are buoyed by ongoing community-agency partnerships to preserve the historic buildings that three weeks ago were slated for demolition.
Early yesterday, Markowitz told us he saw this new development as “a great example of how communities and government can work together for the benefit of all.”
He continued, “The residents, including 327 MacDonough Street, showed New York City how Brooklyn reacts when a crisis hits and I’m thrilled that the City’s Department of Buildings has approved plans to repair the buildings at 329 and 331. Through good old-fashioned neighborhood solidarity and assistance from the Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council, the residents saved these buildings from being demolished. The neighbors of the Macon/MacDonough/Stuyvesant/Lewis Block Association and the Bedford-Stuyvesant community held their ground and would not budge from their mission to save these beautiful brownstones. Bravo!”
(To Be Continued)
First Lady Michelle Paige Paterson's "Healthy Steps to Albany
FIRST LADY MICHELLE PATERSON: Making Healthy Steps – and History – Downstate in Quest to Teach Children Importance of Nutrition and Exercise
Over the past year, she’s brought her health and wellness message to thousands of New Yorkers at key events and, with her Healthy Steps to Albany campaign, inspired hundreds of middle school students to increase their physical activity and consumption of healthy foods.
Fueling her “healthier New York” missions are the stunning data on obesity throughout the nation – especially childhood obesity. And, as reporter Andrew J. Hawkins noted in The Capitol newspaper last May, the First Lady “can effortlessly rattle off statistics: one in four children is overweight; one in three in communities of color. More young people today have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular problems than ever before.” “The purpose of the Healthy Steps program is to educate: exercising regularly improves your physical, emotional and psychological health,” says First Lady Paterson, is also Honorary Chair of the New York State Commission on National and Community Service and Director of Integrative Wellness at Emblem Health. “Students who eat well will learn and live well, too.”
“Yet, despite the incredible medical breakthroughs of the past few decades, our children are part of the first generation of kids who may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents,” she said recently. “We have seen an increase in the rates of obesity-related illnesses, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We, as parents, educators and community leaders, must promote healthy activity, eating and living so that our children can lead long, healthy and active lives.”
Yesterday, the First Lady offered these comments in direct response to Our Time Press questions about her program and the healthy living concept.
OTP: What is the most important message you are trying to get to students?
FIRST LADY PATERSON: There are a couple of lessons I want the kids to learn from their participation in Healthy Steps to Albany.
First, this program is about lifestyle. I want our kids to see that exercising can be fun and that eating healthy can taste great. These habits are part of a lifestyle that will support their physical and emotional well-being from their adolescence through to their adult lives.
Second, I want this program to show our kids that they are in control of their bodies. They are the ones who decide whether to go for a run or sit inside, whether to eat fresh fruit instead of fast foods. This initiative is a tool that our kids can use to build their own health program, one that they can carry out each day – beyond just the 6-week Healthy Steps competition.
Finally, it’s important to note that the point is not to deny ourselves the foods we enjoy. We need to teach moderation. While we should not eat French fries every day, we can have them on occasion – moderation is central to how I eat and important to maintaining a healthy weight.
OTP: What are the school’s, parent’s and the child’s unique responsibilities?
F.L.PATERSON: The health of our children is a real community concern, so it makes sense that each level of our communities gets involved. I developed Healthy Steps in such a way that promotes the participation of our educators, families and kids.
This program is administered through our schools, so it’s the responsibility of the teachers, coaches and principals to provide students with the support they need to thrive. They can help track steps and encourage healthy eating – or even integrate a health lesson in their weekly curriculum. It’s important that the environment where our kids spend a large portion of their time reinforces the message of wellness.
It’s also important that this message is reinforced at home. That’s why parents – who often decide what’s served for dinner or stored in the snack jar – must think about how those decisions impact their kids in the long term. As a working mother of two, I know how difficult preparing meal at the end of the day can be – but choosing convenience over health does our children a disservice. Simple adjustments – like planning meals ahead of time or making dinner a family activity, can help make meals fun, instead of stressful. We must also look at the activities we do as a family. I know that in the age of big-screen TVs or game systems, it’s easy to lounge around, but incorporating physical activity into family time also sets an example for our children.
Finally, our children must also take responsibility for their own health. As I mentioned before, this program really emphasizes their participation. Beyond just counting the “steps” they earn, our kids must decide how they will spend their free time, what kind of foods they’ll eat in school or while with friends, and how they will apply the lessons learned during the competition to their daily routines after the program.
OTP: What do you think of school lunches?
F.L.PATERSON: While not the focus of Healthy Steps to Albany, it’s important that we know what our children are eating while in school. The nutritional information for the food items served in our school cafeterias should be readily available and I encourage parents and educators to be involved.
OTP: Did you have a weight problem growing up as a teen?
F.L.PATERSON: When I went through puberty, I didn’t necessarily struggle with my weight, but I did notice that my body began to change and that my emotions were different from before. Those developments certainly impacted me and – like most people – I suffered from low self-esteem, uncertainty and even depression. I turned to running as an antidote. I grew up on the Upper East Side and was fortunate to have access to Central Park. I would run around the reservoir and began to notice that my state of mind improved and that I felt well physically. I’m now a runner with 33 years experience and know that the habits I formed then have benefited me throughout my adult life.
OTP: Where do children and parents go for help?
F.L.PATERSON: There are many resources for both parents and kids – but they should first consult with their physicians about a specific health concern and proper nutrition plan. Kids should also talk with their coaches and gym teachers about their physical education and any questions they might have about sports or health in general. Additional resources come from all levels of government, which is greatly vested in the health and welfare of our communities. The websites for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department of Health and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene are full of information for kids and their families.
OTP: Have you cut back on your diet choices since going around the state with this program?
F.L.PATERSON: As I said earlier, I started to pay attention to my diet when I was in middle school. By diet, I don’t mean something I did to lose weight, but rather my personal eating habits, which included lots of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains. I continue to eat those foods, but also know that moderation is an important tool. I enjoy pasta and cheese and dessert just as much as the next person, but I limit my consumption of those foods.
About Healthy Steps to Albany: Teams of middle school students compete against each other to see who can earn the most ‘steps’ in six weeks! Students keep a day log of the exercise they get and the healthy foods they eat. Every minute of activity is converted into ‘steps’ that go towards the classrooms virtual trip to Albany. Students track their virtual trip to Albany using the Healthy Steps Map Poster or electronic application. Each footprint is equal to 20,000 steps.
Each classroom is a team, and the team from the 6th, 7th and 8th grade that earns the most steps is declared the winner. Winners are invited to meet the First Lady and the Governor at a healthy luncheon and a chance to visit a farm to learn about whole foods and agriculture. All teams receive a certificate of participation.
First Lady Michelle Paige Paterson has a M.S. in Health Services Management from the Milano Graduate School in New York City and a B.A. from Syracuse University. She began a career focused on people’s health by working with both hospitals and healthcare providers.
NOTE TO READERS, EDUCATORS & HEALTH ADVOCATES!!! First Lady Paterson’s next Healthy Steps challenge begins on March 1st, 2010 and ends April 11, 2010. Register your local middle schools now for the upcoming competition! To learn more about the program and obtain details, visit the First Lady’s Healthy Steps Website (http://www.healthystepstoalbany.ny.gov/). -BG
Cheikh Anta Diop Celebrated
THE GREAT AFRICAN SCHOLARS DR. YOSEF BEN JOCHANNAN (“DR. BEN”), SISTER KHEPRA, DR. LEONARD JEFFRIES, DR. RANDY WESTON URGE GLOBAL FAMILIES OF COLOR TO RECONNECT WITH OUR PAST IN ORDER TO “RESURRECT OUR PEOPLE”
World-Class Scholars Gathered to Remember the Life and Legacy of “Pharoah” Cheikh Anta Diop at Le Grand Dakar Restaurant in Brooklyn on 24th Anniversary of His Transition
On Sunday, February 7, 2010, history was made at Pierre Thiam’s Le Grand Dakar Restaurant in Brooklyn. At a gathering of The Wise, hosted by Dr. and Mrs. Randy Weston, and attended by special guests Dr.Yosef Ben-Jochannan (“Dr. Ben”); Sister Khepra, co-founder of New York City’s first CommUniversity (The First World Alliance) in Harlem; Professor Leonard Jeffries, Yaa-Lengi Meema Ngemi, Mamadou Ndiang and others, Black History Month was210 never mentioned. The perspective was much different. Longer, sharper and through a many-thousand-year-old prism.
The scholars drew together to celebrate the life of one of the greatest thought-leaders of all time — Cheikh Anta Diop who passed at 63 in 1986. Usually, there is a pilgrimage to Senegal for this occasion, but this year, a small cafe-restaurant was the site.
And it felt good being there, being in the valley and the heavens of knowledge, where even the Kora music asked the question: So what are you doing with this history, how are you making it your own? — Far away from the banality of black-history-month trivialities of self-congratulations for corporate “diversity” and discount sales. Bernice Elizabeth Green
See Notes From Dakar
NOTES FROM DAKAR- Scholars Send a Message to the World From Brooklyn
It was Super Bowl Sunday, but that was of no matter to the illustrious group assembled to celebrate the life of the great Senegalese historian, Cheikh Anta Diop on the 24th Anniversary of his death. Revered historian of the Nile Valley civilizations, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan was there with his wife, Sister Khepra, co-founder of the First World Alliance, a “communiversity” as Dr. Leonard Jeffries, also present, had christened it. African-centered musician Randy Weston and his wife and others had the privilege of hearing Yaa-Lengi Meema Ngemi, the translator of Diop’s masterwork, Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology, speak on the importance of Cheikh Anta Diop today.
“His life’s work was to free his people. To give back to Africa the legacy that is Africa.” Ngemi said that Civilization or Barbarism was the book where Diop put together his lifetime’s research. “Diop believed there had to be a change in the African mentality on the continent. In the introduction he says that ‘Imperialism, like a prehistoric monster, first kills the being culturally, spiritually and intellectually before killing us physically. In the denial of the intellectual accomplishments of our ancestors was the cultural and mental death that preceded and paved the way for our physical death both on the continent and throughout the Diaspora.” Ngemi says that Diop made it his purpose to rediscover that knowledge of the ancestors. “Because without it we cannot redefine ourselves worldwide.”
After Ngemi finished the translation, he started to teach about Diop and found that most of the people, people of the Diaspora, did not know Diop’s name. “Cheikh Anta Diop is on a different level spiritually, culturally, and he was a man ahead of his time.” Ngemi refers to Diop’s 1960 work, Black Africa the Economic and Cultural basis for an African State, where Diop contended that Africa had the resources the world wanted and Africa could not only develop itself and compete with the rest of the world, “There is room for all of the Diaspora to return.”
“In this little booklet Diop prophesized as to what was the main problem about us as a people,” said Ngemi. “Diop writes, speaking of his own generation, ‘Historical circumstances now commands of our generation, that it solve, in an expeditious manner, the vital problems that face Africa, most especially, the cultural problem. If we do not succeed in this, we will appear in the history of the development of our people as the watershed generation that was unable to ensure the unified cultural survival of the African continent. We will be the generation which out of political and intellectual blindness, committed the error fatal to our national future.’ That’s what Diop wrote in 1960.”
And here we are, some 50 years later and Ngemi says that cultural identity, which Diop identified as what unites an entire people, “is still what is besetting us. On the continent and in the Diaspora.” Speaking of his own country Congo, Zaire, he said that 10 million have been killed since 1996. “10 million. They continue to die as I speak here. Little girls as young as 9 years old being gang-raped by other Black people, Africans, in Africa, on the African continent. 10 million. Why? Lack of cultural identity.”
Ngemi says that reading Diop’s work has an altering effect, and that there is “a birth of a new person after reading Diop’s work,” and learning “what the world owes to your ancestral genius.”
Easter is still two months away, but a Resurrection is what Ngemi says is the responsibility of conscious African people. “We have to resurrect our people. We have to deliver. Because if we’ve been killed, culturally, intellectually, spiritually, we have to be reborn in order to free ourselves.”
And he says until the masses of people can be resurrected and achieve rebirth, then African people on the continent and throughout the Diaspora “will continue to navigate this blankness of mental slavery. Slavery of the spirit, slavery of culture.”
When Ngemi spoke about the problems with the education system in African nations, he could have been speaking of Bedford-Stuyvesant schools as well. “Africans experience problems today because Diop is not being taught in schools in Senegal,” or in the Congo he says. “Go and see the curriculum in Senegal, or all over Africa. It is still a colonial curricula.” A curriculum that does not teach of the time before this time, before the colonial control and influence over the education. It is the contention of Mr. Ngemi, Diop and the others, that it is that knowledge, that will set the African free, at home and throughout the Diaspora, even here in Brooklyn.