We The Village: Education, Leadership, and Cultural Development
Achieving Our Collective Greatness Now!!!
We The Village: Achieving Our Collective Greatness Now
I’ve written We The Village: Achieving Our Collective Greatness Now as a thought piece for African American uplift and advancement. Use it to start study and strategy sessions in your homes, clubs, lodges, fraternities and sororities, faith groups and communities. It is time to capture the momentum and for us to move forward together – no matter who occupies the White House, the Congress, or the State Houses of this land.
What are the biggest problems we need to solve? Why are our economic realities so grim all over the world? Monopoly capitalism, anti-Black racism and caste stigma, and colonialism are certainly the primary causes. To address these problems, some point to education, because without a world-class education neither we, nor our young people, can compete in the twenty-first century as thought leaders or in the global labor market. Others focus on health, because without good health learning, earning and personal productivity are diminished. Others make politics their priority because public policy frames and determines so many resource options in society.
These factors are obviously vitally important, but this author maintains that any African-descended person who is not actively engaged in group-conscious efforts to change our condition has a conscious or unconscious death wish. Therefore, I contend that the biggest problem we need to solve is that of getting connected to and resurrecting our cultural offensive –our Movement.
This book, We The Village, is a story about a study group that came to think of itself as the Mission Inevitable Team, and how, in seeking to answer the desperately important Question of one twelve-year-old boy, Buddy, it envisioned and built a cultural Village.
MI Village is like a campus:
Leadership for Cultural Advancement is the central theme and purpose of MI Village, and is programmed into every aspect of work and play, from birth!
Housing for children in foster care and their caregivers is completely renovated or newly built as green, smart buildings complete with internet connectivity.
There is affordable housing for staff, teachers, community security and service providers, and other caregivers.
All government services can be accessed in the Services Center, and there are people who help families figure out what they need.
Lots of businesses, artists and craftspeople, and service providers have chosen the campus as one of their locations.
The main house, MI Central, has a dining room and restaurant, library and computer lab, game room, meeting rooms, the Boardroom, and an auditorium. The library and computer lab are open twenty-four hours a day, and people from the community are always in there studying, taking online courses and tests, and getting a GED (general education degree). Community groups use the meeting rooms all the time; and there are rehearsals, performances, and plays in the auditorium almost every night. There is a state-of-the-art virtual learning and homework center that supports the academic programs of every student in public schools in the City.
The schools and athletic fields also get lots of community use. Through partnerships, MI Village has a residential center for young parents and their babies, from birth to three years old; a school for three-year-olds through sixth grade; and a high school.
The all-purpose athletic field on MI Village Campus is home field for baseball, football, soccer, and lacrosse teams; the indoor and outdoor basketball courts are all in use all the time; there are four outdoor tennis courts; a swimming pool, and a great golf course.
The MI Village invites the community, elected officials and civic personages out to the games and performances, and the restaurant is the favorite gathering place for everyone who is part of this movement for cultural renewal.
The gardens, and the agriculture and aqua-culture sites and renewable energy centers now being planned, are the talk of the town.
The network of leaders, caregivers, educators, lawyers, social workers and service providers, artists, activists, coaches, and families of MI Village provide alternatives to incarceration for first-time, non-violent offenders within the village; parenting help; elder care; and training in community organizing.
Everyone in MI Village can answer Buddy’s Question: What difference does it make whether I live or die?!
What are the Steps to Building The MI Village?
Send out the Call for all like-minded thought-leaders and activists to unify around this goal.
Work with urban planners, architects, builders, stakeholders, and lenders to develop the scope of the MI Village Campus project.
Decide upon a site.
With renderings and cost projections, meet with and gain the support of the community.
With renderings, cost projections, and the support of the community, meet with and gain the support of elected officials.
With renderings, cost projections, and the support of the community and elected officials, secure the needed funding.
Continue to work with planners, architects, builders, stakeholders and lenders throughout the construction processes.
At the same time, develop outreach and recruitment plans and messaging so that the work of securing leadership, staff, residents, program participants, and customers will match the progress of completing the physical site.
Establish protocols for leadership, governance, ethics, guiding principles, and procedures of MI Village.
Establish protocols for all educational, fiscal, technological, HR, data, services, discipline, and property management systems.
Stand up the MI Village Prototype by building, staffing, and operating the first campus, and evaluating its efficacy.
Conduct systematic assessments of every aspect of the work.
Develop the business model for a prototype template that can be implemented in other locations.