The Need for Mentoring in the Bay Area
Mentoring is the Answer — continued

 

In the Bay Area, 72 neighborhoods of concentrated poverty generate the majority of violent crime, gang activity, school dropouts, and other social pathologies. Tens of thousands of children living below the poverty lines are clustered together in socially toxic environments – “urban war zones,” as Garbarino notes.

Typically, these children are left to their own devices because society’s interventions are either:

• Ineffective, because they don’t address children’s need for social capital or;
• Too expensive, and no one is willing to pay for it.

 

Mentoring, however, is both effective and affordable:  indeed, mentoring works best when mentors are community volunteers – provided they’re properly trained and supported.  At-risk children don’t need another “official” presence in their lives trying to “fix” them – they need responsible friends they can connect with.  That presence, a caring human being they can form a genuine connection with, makes the intervention far more effective.  Volunteer mentors provide that at very little cost.

They can also be provided for free to the children and families involved, making the process available to the families that need it most.

 

 

1. Introduction
2. The Epidemic
3. Reasons of Poverty
4. Reasons of Poverty continued
5. Social Disconnect
6. Social Disconnect continued
7. Social Disconnect continued
8. Mentoring is the Answer
9. Mentoring is the Answer continued
10. BBBSBA Works on the Bottom Line
11. Final Thoughts