Governor Christie
I am a life long resident of New Jersey, A retired Police officer, as well as being a working artist with one of the finest Art galleries in the land. I am also a teacher with a major organization that is responsible for hundreds of after school programs throughout the state.
I just got the news that I would be losing my job because of your recently announced budget cuts which have decimated this program and many others. I am most aware of the dire financial circumstances of our economy. Having said that, I have never quite understood why it always seems that people who need the government the most are always abandoned by it, when time get hard.
I have worked in fancy art schools lectured in major universities, and no where have I found the satisfaction that I get from working with those in need, in my own community.. In the school that I teach in, my fellow teachers and the head Administrators have become a life line of sorts to the children in these programs. This program’s provides a Safe haven to those little ones who some times just might need a pause in their day. We teach, we talk, we nurture and prod those along that can and do seek higher education or a better quality of life.
We mentor those kids who some times fall between the cracks often supplying them with a much needed snack meal or maybe just a bit of a pep talk.
I for one have seen the results of mentoring many of these children, the results of good people working for a good cause.
I know that we are all in a time of need, but I can’t think of a better place to start than with our children and they are all of our children, regardless if we live in a city like Newark or in short hills.
This country spends so much on war and others in need around the world. It just astounds me that a political party that all so often speaks of the constitution and of the individual rights of Americans. Is always the party that makes budget cuts that affects the most disenfranchised? Why do we always start cutting at the bottom?
In the area around the school where I teach, there are too many unemployed to even count. Every other house near and around the school is vacant, and infested with the newly altered army of the displaced and disenfranchised.
Governor you propose to destroy some of the last safe havens for these children, and this community.
I am astounded that our state government doesn’t see the long term and lingering implications of shutting down programs (after school Program) that serve the community, its children and their parents so well.
This is a poor community where many of its people are out of work. Where the educational system is some thing to be desired as it is.
By cutting afterschool programs and more, you are thinking…… perhaps that this will save money in the short run, which it might. But in the long run you are creating an even larger pool of hurt, by adding more poor people into a system that so often has nothing but broken promises and empty dreams, in store for them.
. If we can’t care for our children, safe guard and nurture them, then what does our future look like any way?
What kind of system of government are we saving and who are we saving it for?
Governor I implore you to stop by the city of Newark, I plead with you to return to your place of birth and walk the halls with the teachers and directors of these after school programs. And see what I have, that these programs are not only viable but much needed. Look into the eyes of these kids who will soon be losing one more lifeline and tell them to their faces that their state government thinks that their future is less important, than a budget. Tel them that they are Less important than those children who are ably provided for by their parents and or, a much more affluent school district. If government is to work it has to work for all.
Head Artist at a after school program in the ironbound section of Newark, NJ
Albinos in much of sub-Saharan Africa are in danger. Albinos lack the pigment melanin in their eyes, skin, and hair. It’s a genetic defect, but in much of Africa, it’s also reason for extreme, and deadly, prejudice. Phillip Martin has been reporting for our program on race and color around the world. This is the first of two stories Martin prepared on the growing threat to albinos. As one interviewee told him:
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