We Can All Play a Part

Jan 18th, 2017

Posted in: General News2

By Councilman Levon Manzie, District 2

For the sake of our city, we must improve outcomes for our youth. Their success is absolutely critical to the success of our communities and Mobile as a whole.

One of the best ways to do this is to ensure our youth have access to educational, extracurricular and employment opportunities. Whether or not a young person has access in these three key areas can make the difference in setting them on the path to accomplishments or failure. Ensuring these types of opportunities during the summer months is especially important because this is the period of time in which they are most lacking.

This is why I would like to join Mayor Stimpson in his appeal to businesses and organizations to join in the City’s efforts to provide access to employment opportunities to our young people. These programs provide a great chance for our young people to learn, get valuable experience in the workplace and in specific trades as well as for employers to be paired with hard working youth and make a difference. We can all play a part in improving outcomes for our youth and, our City, as a result.

I am so encouraged by the Mayor’s efforts in this area. When I proposed the city create a department to ensure the youth of Mobile have the opportunity to succeed and thrive in our city through access to opportunities in these areas, I was hopeful my colleagues and the Mayor would join me in this effort. I am so grateful they did and that we are clearly on the right track.

As we continue to develop these programs, I also hope we will continue to look at expanding extracurricular opportunities and ways to ensure parents and caregivers of youth throughout the city -especially those in underserved communities- are aware of new and existing programs in all these areas.