October 23, 2008

Save the NAACP Youth Entrepreneurship Institute


This is an 'Open Letter to NAACP President Ben Jealous'. I invite everyone to voice their own thoughts in the COMMENTS section below. My hope is that we will receive some type of response from Mr. Jealous himself over time.


Dear President Jealous:

The Electronic Village offers our sincere congratulations on your appointment as President and CEO of the NAACP. The afrosphere stands ready to assist you in any way we can. Black bloggers are optimistic about the outreach that you have made to our online community. Your recent conference calls displayed the power of working cooperatively, thus, serving notice that the NAACP will stand for equity in the public arena, fairness in the corporate sector, and impartial treatment in the criminal justice system.

After talking with you last week I took a deeper look at the NAACP website. It gave me great hope to learn about the Reginald Lewis Youth Entrepreneurship Institute (YEI). For over five years I ran a small business incubator here in Cincinnati. As such, I know the power of entrepreneurship ... especially in these volatile economic times when unemployment is sweeping through the Black community.

You can imagine how disappointed I am to learn that you have decided to cancel this valuable youth entrepreneuship program.

Learning how to become entrepreneurs is so vital to our children and the future they face. It would be wonderful to see such a program located here in Cincinnati. Our town was recently named by Entrepreneur Magazine as a region with three of the top 25 college entrepreneurship programs, University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, and Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), not to mention an outstanding program at Northern Kentucky University just a cross the Ohio River from Cincinnati as well.

In addition, our school board created an entrepreneurship high school eight years ago. Also, our city is the home of a powerful brother, Jim Clingman, who advocates for economic empowerment and youth entrepreneurship in his nationally syndicated newspaper column.

Mr. Jealous, the YEI Program would be a great asset to Cincinnati, as it has been to other cities, and this is a request for your reconsideration of maintaining the program as an individual offering of the NAACP.

Thank you in advance for your courteous consideration of this request.

Sincerely,
Villager, blogger
Electronic Village
Member: The AfroSpear

5 comments:

AAPP said...

I concur with your observations.

AAPP

Unknown said...

AAPP - Did you ever make that move to join the NAACP branch in your area?

lifestyle101 said...

kep an institute. It is wonderful.
Schools and adults haved destroyed dreams of young people. Be creative

lifestyle101 said...

Back again. Schools, teachers, parents and have destroyed dreams of eigth graders, ninth and ten graders, because we have taken away their creative and "thinking."

grandpa charlie
old man with an attitude
charliehice@yahoo.com
lifestyle101-howtolivealone.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Lifestyle - You have a good point. I think that it happens earlier. Often we see the youthful energy around school sapped by the time the youngsters are in 3rd grade...

Anyhow, I hope that NAACP continues to support their YEI. Time will tell...