SOUTHWEST YOUTH COLLABORATIVE, Chicago, Illinois

Southwest Chicago, like parts of many American cities, has experienced increases in poverty, crime, drug abuse, unemployment, disintegrating infrastructure, and gang-related problems-conditions that profoundly challenge the lives of the community's young people. Immigrants of widely diverse origins have recently joined the predominantly African American and Latino working-class families who make up the area's five neighborhoods. While some might see the area's ethnic diversity as a roadblock to improving local conditions, the Southwest Youth Collaborative, founded in the early 1980s, embraces difference and sees within its multiracial make-up the potential for creating a rich and vibrant community.

Aron Hanson, Community Justice Initiative Gelatin silver print © Dawoud Bey 1999	Trenton Moffett, Greater Lawn Community Youth Network Gelatin silver print © Dawoud Bey 1999

The Collaborative is a collective of churches, social services centers, recreational centers, and neighborhood organizations working together to restore hope to its young members caught up in crime, drug abuse, and despair. They foster youth and community participation and leadership skills through recreational centers, soccer league, and a Hip-Hop Academy. Support programs, such as Girl Talk, help female juvenile offenders avoid repeat offenses. Another positive outcome of the project's efforts has been the development of mentorships between young people and adults, which has established a system of intergenerational support for troubled youth through the wisdom and experience of older community members.

Photographer Dawoud Bey, a professor of photography at Columbia College-Chicago, is known for his powerful and sympathetic portraits of young people in urban communities. His images are portraits of staff and young people involved with the Southwest Youth Collaborative. A diptych (two photographs side-by-side) portrays Aron Hanson, a Youth Organizer, and another diptych shows Danyale Sims at the West Englewood Youth and Teen Center. One portrait depicts Dowua Abed, who is involved with a Youth Network program, and another shows Trenton Moffett.

Interviewer Dan Collison, a regular contributor to National Public Radio, directs and produces documentaries about people and places overlooked by the mainstream media. His interviews feature members of the Southwest Youth Collaborative talking about community problems and struggles addressed by this organization, and of bringing people together to resolve them. We also hear from those who benefited first-hand from the program. quotation from an interview
 
 

http://www.creativephotography.org    This page last updated September 24, 2000.   oncenter@ccp.arizona.edu