KaCey Venning spent four years in school classrooms before she
realized that the best way to serve her students was by resigning.
Advocate empowers youth in Atlanta neighborhood where SPLC plans new
office
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Safiya Charles Read the full piece here
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Friend,
KaCey Venning spent four years in school classrooms before she
realized that the best way to serve her students was by resigning.
The former public school teacher is the co-founder and executive
director of Helping Empower Youth
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(HEY!), a youth development program based in Atlanta's English
Avenue neighborhood - an area with one of the highest
concentrations of poverty in the city.
Venning said that when she realized the issues her students faced at
home made it difficult for some to succeed in the classroom, she
couldn't continue her career without first ensuring that their
most critical needs were being met.
"I realized that the things I was most passionate about were all
the challenges that my students were facing outside of school that
showed up in the classroom," Venning said. "How do we help
children read at grade level, how do we get them to embrace all the
things that education is meant to do if, at 14 years old,
they're fighting with whatever social ills they're
experiencing? The idea that they're going to check all of that
at the door to have a reading lesson or a math lesson - it was
very hard to get past that."
This type of community-building work, led by grassroots advocates like
Venning, is a major focus of the Southern Poverty Law Center's
new strategic initiative to support Black and Brown people who are
working to improve the health and economic well-being of their
communities.
That's why the SPLC has announced plans to locate its new
Georgia office in the English Avenue neighborhood of Atlanta's
Westside.
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"We're trying to be more intentional about centering our
work in community, and that means actually being physically based in
the communities that we serve," said SPLC Chief Strategy Officer
Seth Levi.
"People on the Westside represent that community. And the unique
nature of the area also makes having our office here very exciting.
The Westside is where the King family lived; it's where Julian
Bond - the SPLC's first president - lived. A lot of
organizing during the Civil Rights Movement took place here. There are
also six historically Black colleges and universities based on the
Westside, only about a mile and a half from our office. This gives us
an opportunity to work in partnership with students at those
colleges."
Read More
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
justice and equity in courts and combat white supremacy?
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