Reflection on ONG

Meeting at Our Next Generation really opened my eyes to a lot of things. We all know that things like some of their situations at home are going on and we can normally shrug them off and go about our day. However, when you work with these kids it's hard to just turn and pretend like this stuff doesn't happen. I know that I cannot change what happens to these kids at home, nor can I change where they are going to be in the next 5 years, but with that time I spend with the kids they remind me of, well me! Despite all these hardships they will face they are just kids. At Our Next Generation they have the opportunity to just be kids and have fun, while increasing skills necessary for them to excel academically and reach higher levels of education than possibly anyone ever has in their families. For that two hours I'm there to help these children. They always seem to warm up to all the volunteers really quickly. They are a lot of fun to be around and seem to have enough energy to run an ultra-marathon! These kids have given me something special, no matter how difficult things get for me these kids will have a much more difficult time. So if they can get through what they are dealing with and graduate from high school and college, well that just has to give hope to everybody. I'm sure many of the people working with them will see the same thing that I have seen. They are a special group of children and with the help of Our Next Generation they may finally have a future denied to them by outside factors such as family income and moving from place to place. With all the factors working against these children it's nice to see that there are people out there willing to put in their time to help them succeed. Especially when most people are having enough problems on the home front. To go out of your way to help children is really something.

Research on ONG

The research I did on ONG was about the community they are in and their direct impact on that community. The impact I'm looking for particularly is on the children and their families. I started my research looking around the internet for certain information. Some facts I found about the community is that it's the lowest per capita income community in Milwaukee, and the second lowest in the entire state of Wisconsin. Also there is a 50% mobility rate of students. Which is a measure of how many students are transferring in and out of school. There is actually a statistics that correlates a higher mobility rate with a lower achievement rate. So when there are students being enrolled and removed from your school they have less chance to get comfortable and preform successfully academically. Another very surprising statistic is that without intervention about 40% of these students will not graduate high school. So its clear that without some kind of help these students will most likely fall into the category that about 55% of citizens without high school diplomas don't even report a yearly salary. So what ONG tries to do is develop these students reading, writing, and mathematics skills in order to give them a push in the right direction. With that they can go onto graduate high school and then college. With many of these students going that far they can then return to push their old communities to new heights. After working with the children a few times it's clear to see these kids enjoy learning. However, kids will be kids and there is always a bit of arguing and what not. With all they do for the community its no wonder the community feels the need to help this program succeed. In the spring of 2008 the graduating class of Radiologic Technologists donated $500 to keep the program up and running. The money was immediately put towards the development of a new literacy and educational program. So as Our Next Generation continues to give to the community the community will irrevocably give back and help this program to succeed. Another way its clear that the community gives back is this program. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee wants this program to succeed to give put more kids through college. The more that go to college the brighter tomorrow looks for not only for this particular community but everywhere in Wisconsin.