Education
Disney Dreamers talk business and philanthropy
The Disney Dreamers Class of 2024 received flowers during spring break on the Disney Dreamers Academy.
The annual Disney Dreamers Academy 2024 took place April 3-7 in Orlando, Florida. Thousands of scholars aged 14 to 18 could have applied, but only 100 were chosen. Young individuals who do that hairstyle show great character, initiative and determination. Their dreams are big and they actively take steps to attain them.
The program is an integral a part of Disney’s commitment to supporting diverse communities by encouraging the following generation to think and dream big. Dreamers have unique lives. The philanthropy, artistic talent and entrepreneurship of 100 Dreamers are admirable. For five days, dreamers participate in practical workshops tailored to their interests, watch what goes on behind the scenes at Disney, and meet with celebrity mentors and invited speakers.
BLACK ENTERPRISES is devoted to uplifting and empowering young people, who strive so as to add value to the communities around them. The way forward for the black business community was present at Disney Dreamers Academy and TO BE spoke with a number of the exceptional young leaders of today and tomorrow.
Noelle Nelson
You founded a non-profit organization, Best buddies wear turquoise and red, who advocates for allergy awareness and serves on the board of directors. What have you ever learned about business and how boards operate based on these experiences?
We all have different thoughts and ideas which have helped us grow. We discuss who could sponsor us and work with us.
You are a journalist, health activist and businesswoman. If you had to decide on one role, which one would you select?
Definitely health care combined with education. Once a month I work with children at camps to assist them feel supported and empowered on their journey, in addition to learn more about their food allergies.
If you could possibly appeal to anyone to assist grow your business, who wouldn’t it be?
I’d 100% ask for more financial resources to give you the option to implement the academic program. To teach not only about food allergies, but all hidden medical conditions across the country. Nnationwide awareness would help advance more empathy and laws.
Jayden Watkins
You are the CEO of Higher Is Waiting, tell us about it.
Higher Is Wating’s mission is to offer mentoring programs for teenagers in my area. I’m planning a giant book bag giveaway for the summer and youth explosion. We donate care packages to the community because that is what I’m enthusiastic about.
As a director, how do you select what is required and what comes next?
That’s why prayer could be very essential to me. I normally have a vision. Always write down your visions. An explosion of youth, I wrote it down on paper a few years ago, but now it’s beginning to bear fruit. Additionally, you wish a board of directors.
What have you ever learned from working with management?
Be open. You could have a dream, but God it may get other people involved take this dream even further. We have the wisdom of teenagers, but other people live longer than us. So having a board gives you latest insight.
If you could possibly appeal to anyone to assist grow your business, who wouldn’t it be?
We need mentors who will come into us and not overlook us because we’re at all-time low straight away. Give give me advice, show me where I’m weak and be open to our ideas. I didn’t find out about filing a 501(c)(3). I had to succeed in out to people and they didn’t reach out to me.
If we would like black entrepreneurship to thrive, we must work in unity.
Lola Invasions
Let’s talk about your early reading initiative.
We organize events to encourage children to read. We visited local schools and kindergartens and read to them, and gave away packs of books to encourage more children to read.
You wish to advance neuroscience and concentrate on gaps in early reading. What do these efforts appear like in the longer term?
I would like to be like a research scientist running a hospital and grow to be a CEO in the future.
What will occur to the Reading Initiative after we go to school?
I still want this campaign to proceed in college and I encourage my classmates to participate as well.
What would you tell other kids who want to begin a nonprofit focused on early reading or the rest?
I’d just encourage them to actually be there because, you understand, I used to be really nervous starting out because I wasn’t sure if anyone desired to do it with me. I learned that you’ve the facility to make a difference and make a difference. Go get it.
TeLario Watkins II
Tell me about being a “Hunger Hero.”
I began a collaboration with No Kid Hungry. I organize fundraisers and raise awareness about hunger amongst children. They gave me the title of Hunger Hero.
Tiger mushroom farms are your business. Do you’ve any employees? Do you’ve plans to scale up?
I do. I would like to have a full-fledged, established Tiger Mushroom Farm food business. Right now it’s just me and my family. We are working on our spice line.
How do you address running a business, running a non-profit, going to highschool, speaking, etc.?
I finish school, then I work in my business. I’m going to the basement and deal with the mushroom sprouts. We plant them and once they begin to sprout, we transplant them to one in all my community gardens.
How many hectares do you’ve?
One acre was donated to us and we’ve one other acre where I donated about 250 feet to an area food bank for his or her garden.
If you could possibly appeal to anyone to assist grow your business, who wouldn’t it be?
Volunteers. We definitely need numerous volunteers for all of the projects we would like to begin.
Christian Blankson
Let’s talk about Ana Mission, what inspired you to begin it? How are you?
Ana Mission is my catering company. It was born out of my love of constructing and eating tacos for breakfast. I like them very much and have grow to be a connoisseur of them. I used to be inspired to make a business out of it. I began this in 2017 or 2018. I do it every summer and so long as I’m here I’ll keep constructing on it. I also sell cookies in the varsity cafeteria as a part of a non-profit enterprise.
It could be very difficult to get school cafeterias to introduce latest foods because of food allergies and safety concerns. How did you do it?
Many meetings. The administrators asked me concerning the ingredients and security protocols. I printed them out together with the mission statement and sent them to the varsity store. I donate the proceeds to children in Ghana for shelter, food and health care. It’s called Peacock Cookie, it is a mint chocolate chip. I’ll do it soon I present my gluten-free cookie.
Tell us about Black Girl unity.
I actually have two younger sisters in junior highschool. As a woman, I feel like our experiences are different than guys’. Black Girl Unity was really intended to assist correct the mistakes that I imagine are made within the assimilation of black girls.
Education
Literacy materials being withdrawn from many schools are facing new pressure from parents of children with reading difficulties
A lawsuit filed by two Massachusetts families deepens opposition to an approach to teaching reading that some schools proceed to make use of despite evidence that it will not be probably the most effective.
States across the country were modernization of reading programs for research-based strategies, generally known as “learning to read”, including an emphasis on sounding out words.
This week’s lawsuit takes aim at an approach that does not try this emphasize phonics. These include the time-tested “three clues” strategy, which inspires students to make use of images and context to predict words by asking questions comparable to: “What happens next?”, “What is the first letter of the word? ” or “What clues do the photos give?”
The families of the Massachusetts students who did this it was hard to read filed a lawsuit against authors and publishers who supported this approach, including Lucy Calkins, a lecturer at Teachers College at Columbia University. He is demanding compensation for the families allegedly harmed by the fabric.
Thousands of schools once used the three-signal approach as part of the “balanced literacy” approach advocated by Calkins and others, which focused, for instance, on having children read books they liked independently and spend less time on phonics or letter relationships and sounds. Over the past few years, greater than 40 states have passed laws emphasizing evidence-based and research-based materials, in keeping with the nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute.
It’s unknown how many school districts still use the programs at issue since the numbers aren’t monitored — but there are many, in keeping with Timothy Shanahan, professor emeritus of education on the University of Illinois at Chicago. Many teachers have been trained to show the three-pointer, so it could actually be used even in classrooms where it will not be part of the curriculum, he said.
He said research does show the advantages of teaching phonics, but there may be less information in regards to the three-cue method.
“There is no research that isolates the practice of teaching three-pointers – so we don’t know if it helps, hurts, or is just a waste of time (although logically it would seem to conflict with phonics, which may or may not be the case when teaching children),” he wrote in an email.
A key part of the sport is the tricue Reading the recovery programwhich was utilized in over 2,400 US elementary schools. In 2023, the Reading Recovery Council of North America filed a lawsuit alleging that Ohio lawmakers violated the authority of state and native boards of education through the use of a budget bill banning the three-pointer.
The new lawsuit accuses Calkins and other outstanding figures in the sphere of childhood literacy of using fraud to trick schools into purchasing and using flawed methods. The parents who sued alleged that their children had difficulty reading after studying in public schools in Massachusetts, where a 2023 Boston Globe study found that almost half of schools used materials that the state Department of Education deemed to be of low quality.
The lawsuit asks the court to order authors, their corporations and publishers to supply an early literacy program that features reading instruction for gratis.
One plaintiff, Michele Hudak of Ashland, said she thought her son was reading at an elementary level until fourth grade, when he had difficulty reading his assigned textbooks. By then, tests showed he was reading at an elementary level, the lawsuit said, “solely because he could successfully guess the words from the pictures.”
Calkins didn’t reply to an email looking for comment. It has maintained its approach, even adding more phonics to its literacy curricula, called units of study.
But last 12 months Teachers College announced it was closing the Reading and Writing Project, which Calkins founded, saying it desired to foster more conversation and collaboration between different approaches to literacy. Calkins has since founded the Reading and Writing Project in Mossflower to proceed her work.
“Teachers must use the best approach and differentiate their instruction depending on the specific child they are working with,” Calkins said in a video posted on the new project’s website.
Michael Kamil, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, said that although Calkins dropped phonics, it is just one component of teaching children to read.
“There are lots of reasons why students don’t learn to read, and the reading program is very rarely the main reason,” Kamil said.
Education
Actor Michael Rainey Jr. donates $2.4 million to improve financial literacy in Staten Island schools
“Power Book II: Ghost” star Michael Rainey Jr. just made a significant move into power — starting this 12 months’s holidays early.
The 24-year-old actor has partnered with the Restoring America Through Recovery Education (RARE) Foundation to donate $2.4 million in financial literacy tools and support to three high schools in Staten Island, New York.
“A huge THANK YOU to (Michael Rainey Jr.) for sponsoring Port Richmond High School and providing each student and their parents with the necessary education in financial literacy and Equifax identity theft protection! Your commitment to empowering the next generation is truly inspiring,” RARE officials captioned the post on the web site Instagram.
The post included a video from the day Rainey visited Port Richmond High School to present the organization with an enormous check. There, he spoke candidly about his financial literacy journey and posed for photos with students. School officials and community organizers were also available to talk to students about financial literacy.
“Together with the support of the RARE Foundation Board of Directors, this is the first step in our mission to ensure that every student in New York is financially prepared for adulthood,” the post continued. “This is just the beginning – there are many more schools to come! Let’s make financial literacy a priority for every student!”
According to the organization’s website, the RARE Foundation strives to provide disadvantaged communities with “essential financial recovery education and training.” By partnering with RARE, Rainey hopes to further empower disadvantaged and at-risk youth with sage advice in order that they can confidently navigate their financial future, local radio station HOT 97 reported.
Rainey is from Louisville, Kentucky, and “Power Book II: Ghost,” a derivative of fifty Cent’s “Power” TV series, is ready in the five boroughs of New York City. In the spirit of the season, this wasn’t the one charity event Rainey took part in on Staten Island in recent days. According to videos uploaded to his Instagram Storiesthe actor also appeared on the Staten Island Turkey Drive, where he greeted guests and handed out T-shirts.
Education
VSU is the first HBCU with an accredited social work program
Virginia State University (VSU) is making HBCU history with a brand new accredited program.
Virginia State University distinguishes itself from other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by adding a Master of Social Work degree program. The advanced degree program will likely be the first of its kind accredited by the Council on Social Work (CWSE) to be offered at an HBCU.
The university announced the accreditation of the program on November 21 on the university’s official website. The program has been operating since 2022, but only now has it received full accreditation. CWSE grants accreditation retroactively, covering previous semesters through fall 2022.
With the addition of the program, VSU’s mission is to teach culturally and socially competent mental health experts to assist support and lift up your communities.
“Preparing graduates to systematically and strategically address the well-being of people who have experienced trauma. It is also committed to promoting human rights and social and economic justice through community engagement, advocacy and collaborative research that influences professional practice at the local, national and global levels,” the press release reads.
VSU is not the only HBCU that has found success in academia. BLACK ENTERPRISES it was recently reported that Jackson State University is the first HBCU to win the Founder’s Award from the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
NAI was founded in 2011 and has welcomed over 700 fellows. The organization promotes and honors creativity, diversity and invention. To join this prestigious organization, a scientist must hold no less than one U.S. patent.
JSU is a founding member of the organization and boasts many successful innovators who’ve change into NAI scholarship recipients.
Introduced in 2012, Ernest Izevbigie obtained two patents that led to the creation of EdoBotanics. The dietary complement helps cancer patients cope with the unwanted effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Other inductees included Kamal Ali ’17 and Danuta Leszczyńska ’18.
JSU President Marcus Thompson accepted the honor: “This distinction further underscores our commitment to academic excellence, economic development and social progress. This is a significant milestone not only for JSU, but for all HBCUs and the state of Mississippi.”
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