Tune in tonight at 6:30 p.m. to Residents’ Journal’s live 25-minute call-in television show on Cable Access Network’s Hotline Channel 21.

RJ’s Editor-in-chief Mary C. Johns will interview Mary Gutierrez, from The Bronzeville Movement, about her organization’s efforts in closing down all 14 Liquor/Package Goods Stores, located in Chicago’s 3rd ward south side low-income Bronzeville community.

Call 773-738-1060 during airtime, if you want to join in on the discussion.

The US Department of Labor is asking members of the public to strengthen affirmative action rules for people with disabilities, including veterans.

Patricia Shiu, director of the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, talking to participants, including Residents' Journal, during a public discussion on affirmative action provisions under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, at the 536 S. Clark Street Chicago Federal Building on Aug. 20. Photo by Mary C. Johns

Patricia Shiu, director of the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, recently came to Chicago for a public discussion on affirmative action provisions under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Shiu called the meeting at the 536 S. Clark Street Chicago Federal Building on Aug. 20 to make the affirmative action provisions “more effective and to help ensure that more people with disabilities are employed and are given the opportunity to advance in employment in the federal contracting labor force,” according to statement from the Labor Department.

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Click on the image to view the fourth episode of this season’s “RJ TV,” on August 9, 2010.

Watch Residents’ Journal‘s Senior Reporter Jacqueline Thompson’s live discussion with Pat Bearden of the Bronzeville Alliance Educational Task Force, about their Family History Research Project.

Click on the image to view the third episode of this season’s “RJ TV,” on August 2, 2010.

Watch Residents’ Journal Youth Project Director Quintana Woodridge’s discussion with RJ young adult reporter Jasmine Hunt about participation in the Chicago Youth Voices Network’s “Nuf SAID” project, where Hunt and other youth reporters surveyed their peers across the city of Chicago in March 2010, about issues of education, crime, violence, health and the environment, housing and homelessness, jobs and employment issues.

The two RJ reporters also discussed Hunt’s scheduled interview with 3rd Ward Ald. Pat Dowell regarding pollution, an upcoming article on school violence by another youth reporter, and they also discussed a “Youth Truth” video produced by the Nuf SAID group in July 2010.

Click on the image to view the second episode of this season’s “RJ TV,” on July 19, 2010.

Watch Residents’ Journal Youth Project Director Quintana Woodridge report the statistics, results, and plans of recent surveys our youth reporters and others in the Chicago Youth Voices Network’s “Nuf-SAID” project done in March 2010, on Chicago low-income area youth perspectives regarding crime, violence, education, health and the environment, housing and homelessness, jobs and employment issues.

New stories from students in our Urban Youth International Journalism Program are now available for your viewing.

These articles were written by young people from the Altgeld Gardens Chicago public housing community through our partnership with People for Community Recovery, an environmental justice group that focuses on fighting for environmental and economic equity on the Southeast Side of Chicago and beyond.

Please click here to read the youths’ articles on where they live, what is needed in their community, a personal experience with a drama club, a perspective on bullying, a protest on the lack of a library at the public housing site, and an interview with a community dentist.

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.

My name is Everett Johnson and I am 12 years old.

I go to Carver Elementary School. I am an African American boy who wants to be something in life. I have two sisters. They are nice. One is in high school and one is in grammar school. I love them so much. I don’t want anything to happen to either one of them. I love them so much and my mother—she loves me, too. We do a lot together. She works at our school. She’s the manager. Everyday I see her.

I come from a place called Altgeld Gardens. It’s a place where we need things, such as a library and another school. We need a library for kids like me because, after school, kids like me don’t have anywhere to go to get more learning, like a summer reading program.

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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.

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

My experience with the Altgeld Garden’s drama club was very new and scary.

The experience was unlike anything I’ve ever done. I found it all very unusual, since it was my job to act in a play, even though I have stage fright.

That was the scariest part of being in the drama club. But I am very happy and grateful for my experience because it helped me get over a problem I have been facing my whole life.

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Editor’s Note: The following article computer science homework help 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.

It all started in 1^st grade—the thing that I thought would never happen to me, actually did. I’m talking about bullying.

I remember how it started like it was yesterday.

I was sitting down at my desk doing my schoolwork. Then I stood up to go sharpen my pencil and my classmates started calling me fat. I said nothing and went back to sit down and they took my pencil and I told the teacher but the teacher did nothing. I told them to give it back but they didn’t even give it back, so I grabbed the pencil and took it back. They pushed me and then I pushed back. We got into a fight.

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