Thursday, January 6, 2011

a better way... [thoughts from a dissilusioned social worker]

Feliz Dia de Los Reyes Everyone!


So anyways, I was having coffee with a friend last night.  We talked about a lot of things like confusion, sex, buying new jeans, immigration reform, dumb people, refugees and vandalism on Wealthy Street before brushing the snow off our cars and heading home three hours later. At one point he asks me what I think about the recent things happening on Wealthy Street.  I respond by asking him how we're supposed to do community development in a way that it actually brings positive change.  We talk about it for a while and come up with few concrete ideas about how to actually do it in a way that doesn't create more segregation and division.  We only agree that bringing in fancy hip businesses is not necessarily the best way to combat poverty.  Then I get home and remember something I forgot to tell him, so I send him a g-chat message and in that conversation I find the answer to all of our questions.  Music.  Discipline.  Empowerment.  El Sistema.  Check it out.  I've decided to write a letter to the the United States.  It goes like this:


Querido Estados Unidos, 


Venezuela should be an example of how to combat poverty.  Welfare and establishing fancy businesses in the ghetto are obviously not working too well for us... just saying.


sincerely yours,
a disillusioned social worker


I love this Gustavo Dudamel Fellow
"si amas algo, tienes tiempo, tienes mucho tiempo..."



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