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My trip to Paris

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Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program class at People for Community Recovery, a not-for-profit organization based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development. In April 2011, youths from People for Community Recovery traveled to France as part of a photography exchange program with youths from La Courneuve, a community near Paris.

When we first left out, we went to the office for People for Community Recovery (PCR), an environmental study group. I was really sleepy, and we sat for about 15 minutes. Then a truck pulled up; It was good and clean, big and shiny. Then everyone started taking pictures. I took pictures of the front of the truck, then on the side of the truck to show the details and the wheels. I asked my friend Hollis, a fellow resident of Altgeld Gardens, how does he feel about going to Paris? He said, “I’ve been on lots of planes taking trips to see my auntie in Georgia, but I am very excited.”

The Eiffel Tower. Photo by Manquaze Allen.

A limo pulled up. I wasn’t that excited but Hollis, Lanesha, Lakesha and Nakia – also residents of Altgeld Gardens – were yelling, jumping and moving their bags out of the PCR office into the limo. Every one got in the limo and I was the last person to get in. As I said before, I wasn’t that excited. We started singing in the limo on the way to the airport; we were singing an R Kelly song. When we got out at the airport, everyone got their bags and went to the counter. The airport attendants weighed our bags then we went through security, which took forever. After security, I went to sit down. We boarded and I felt so relieved that we were on the plane. I got a massive headache once we were in the air so I fell asleep. I slept the whole way there.

We arrived in Paris and went to the hotel to drop off our bags. When I saw the bathroom, I was amazed. “Where is the shower?” I asked. I then opened the door next to the bathroom and there was the shower. My jaw dropped! It was so small, barely enough space for one person. After putting my bags up, I met back in the lobby with everyone in the group and we went to eat dinner. I had a hamburger made the American way with lettuce, pickles and tomatoes. The fries were out of this world. I tasted all of the seasoning the restaurant put on them. They used salt and pepper. It was great. We walked back to the hotel to go to sleep.

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A Dream Come True

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Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program class at People for Community Recovery, a not-for-profit organization based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development. In April 2011, youths from People for Community Recovery traveled to France as part of a photography exchange program with youths from La Courneuve, a community near Paris.

Paris. France. It was something like a dream come true. On Wednesday, April 13, 2011, it was also boring because we arrived too early and had to wait in the small, hot and muggy office of People for Community Recovery filled with over 15 bags and 10 people. After greeting everyone and hugging our family members, our limos arrived. I was filled with mixed emotions. Getting in the limo to the airport I was happy but yet a little sad. I was leaving family and friends. I was thinking of everything that could go wrong as I sat quietly the whole ride. I and the other children and our chaperone and Takia Long took pictures of the whole ride.

Students from Altgeld Gardens pose with their French counterparts.

I had a chill going through my spine getting out of the car at O’Hare Airport. It was a long, tedious process checking in and going through the security measures, but I was patient. I bought a lot of candy since the security said we couldn’t go through with any food or water because of all the terrorist attempts, but all this really made me feel very safe. We arrived very early so if anything went wrong we would have time to spare. Me, Manquaze (my brother), Lakeshia (a 17-year-old participant in the An Eye for An Eye program) and Hollis (brother of Lakeshia, another participant of An Eye for An Eye) played Uno anxiously waiting to board the plane.

Finally about 45 minutes later, we grabbed all of our bags. I couldn’t help but have butterflies in my stomach. We boarded a big white and blue plane with that read “Air France” on the side. The flight attendants greeted us in French, which kind of made me happy, because I knew that I could respond. I put all my bags up in storage. Then, about 15 minutes later, we finally started to move. The best part of the air plane ride was taking off because it was like a roller coaster; I love roller coasters. It was hard trying to force myself to go to sleep knowing I was thousands of feet in the air. The flight was 6 hours. We had made it to the airport around 5 that evening and made it to Paris around 1:30 a.m. I had stayed up during the flight because I was watching movies and talking to the other children in the program. Plus I was too scared I would miss something. Most of the children didn’t go to sleep just as I didn’t. We woke the adult chaperones so we could get off the plane.

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Do Students Trust Authority?

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Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program class at People for Community Recovery, a not-for-profit organization based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development.

In March, a city-wide youth media group called Nuf Said put out an online and written survey. Nuf-Said is a group of youths from various youth media organizations that came together to find out what young people in Chicago think about education, housing, health, violence and employment.

Once the survey results were in, Nuf-Said participants created media around the statistics to explore how true they are. The survey had a question about a student name Amri getting in a student named Jaden’s face after school over something that had happened in the school lunch room.

The surveyed youths were asked if they would call an authority figure like a teacher or cop. 6.4 percent of the students said they would, while a combined 48.2 percent of students felt they should do something to get back at the other person and 42.3 percent said they would just walk away.

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Recycling on the South Side

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Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program.

What is recycling? According to Pennsylvania Recycling Guide, pay someone to write my paper recycling is “taking an item and the separation and collection of material(s) for processing and re-manufacturing into new products to complete.”
Just about everything is recyclable such as aluminum and cardboard, glass, newspaper, batteries and certain plastics.

Alisha Jacobs interviewing youth workers from the People for Community Recovery in CHA Altgeld Gardens community in August 2010, about recycling trash. Photo by Quintana Woodridge

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What We Need Now

by  , Youth Reporter from Altgeld Gardens

Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program class at People for Community Recovery, a not-for-profit organization based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development.

Growing up in Altgeld Gardens for 19 years, experiencing everything that goes on out here. I don’t even know where to begin.

There’s a lot of violence—gang violence, too.

But the main thing that concerns me in my neighborhood is there is nothing to do in our neighborhood. There are not many programs to keep the kids occupied and out of trouble.

So how do we help these kids so that they can stay out of trouble?

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Altgeld Gardens Dentist

by  Youth Reporter from Altgeld Gardens

Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program.

What do you think of when you are sitting in a dentist’s waiting room? Terror? Fear? Anxiety?

The first thing I think of when I envision a dentist is a big, rude, muscular and ugly person, man or woman, who wants to drill or yank out your teeth with a pair of pliers or other weird tools—that is, until I woke up to reality and overcame my fears, which I found to be all untrue.

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Altgeld Gardens News

by  Editor-In-Chief

I toured the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the far South Side following the June 20, 2006 Chicago Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meeting after several residents strongly encouraged me to talk to tenants they said had some concerns about their rehabbed units.

My tour guides, current Altgeld resident Gail Jackson and former Altgeld resident Renae Wilkins – who relocated out the public housing development with a housing voucher – led the way and introduced me to several residents who recently moved into refurbished apartments at the site and were concerned about the quality of the construction.
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CHA Development News

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Harold Ickes News

Harold Ickes is an eternally active mosaic of changing conditions. For the past nine months, we longtime residents have shared stairwells, hallways, by-ways and parking (already scarce) with strangers who look at you with surprise as they continue to claim their place in what you thought was your space.

Where the rent paying residents have no say so as to who frequents the common areas, neither do they have the authority to stop the heavy human traffic in the stairwells where our small children and seniors have to go up and down. The elevators in some buildings stop on a floor, the doors opens a peak, slams shut and the elevator continues on its way, leaving one to get off above or below their floor with or without heavy bags or other packages. Where is management?
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If the Suit Fits, Who Wears It?

by  Assistant Editor

There have been numerous suits in the world of Chicago public housing. Some hang around like old suits in a thrift shop, and some new ones are tailor made just for the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) by the residents of public housing.

The suits that I’m talking about are not clothes but lawsuits. But these suits are clinging to CHA all the same. Class action lawsuits are what I’m talking about – many of them are being hung out there to air dry, while some of them were considered form fitting.

In some cases, they were tailor made for the residents, and the residents won. Or did they?
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Altgeld Gardens Lawsuit Settlement

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Altgeld Gardens residents won a $10.5 million dollar Class Action lawsuit settlement regarding environmental contamination with Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) this past summer.

But unlike most class action lawsuit winners, these residents won’t be receiving their money in the form of a check, according to the attorney who represented the residents in the case. Instead, CHA will keep the money and award the plaintiffs credit toward their rent, according to Cheryl Johnson, President of the People for Community Recovery (PCR) of Altgeld Gardens, and Kim Johnson, Assistant Press Secretary with CHA.
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