EXCERPT FROM THE SKILLMAN FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT HIGHLIGHTING DHDC PROGRAM PARTICIPANT – ANDREA HERNANDEZ
Caesar Chavez senior teaching youth to aim higher
Andrea Hernandez - Youth Participant & 2007 Dream Makers Awardee
If failure is an option, Andrea Hernandez doesn’t appear to know it. A native of Mexico who moved to Southwest Detroit with her family at age 5, Hernandez is determined to rise above adverse elements of her culture’s and community’s lowest expectations.
“Southwest Detroit is primarily a Hispanic community, so everybody here is kind of taught from a young age that we’re not really going to go anywhere,” said Hernandez, 16, who attends Caesar Chavez Academy. “So a lot of people drop out of school and go to work. A lot of the s get pregnant. “You sort of think you’re not going to go anywhere in life. It’s low morale. That’s what it is.
” Fortunately for her, as the eldest of five children, Hernandez said her parents pushed the family in a different direction, seeking work and knowing no one except a few family members. “They’ve always taught us that we’ve got to do something with our lives,” she said. “That’s the reason we came over here.”
Determined to live up to her parents’ expectations, Hernandez hopes to take other youths along on her journey. In 2007, she joined The Skillman Foundation’s Good Neighborhoods Initiative. Launched in January 2006, the program provides full-scale support to six neighborhoods where more than 65,000 youth live, including Southwest Detroit, the Brightmoor area, and the Osborn, Northend and Cody/Rouge high school communities. Primarily targeting the 50 percent of youth who live in poverty throughout these areas, Good Neighborhoods seeks to work directly with citizens and parents, develop partnerships with organizations involved in youth projects and support exemplary s of success in designated neighborhoods.
“What interested me is that I live in the neighborhood and I see the problems that are going on,” Hernandez said. “I’m the type of person that, when I see a problem going on, I don’t want to just sit by and watch it happen.” Hernandez attended the program’s initial planning meeting, where she and other youths collectively brainstormed to create a concept that eventually will be incorporated with the long-range Good Neighborhoods effort. “They defined problems and we had to find a way to fix them,” she said. “We came up with the idea to set up a youth center.” Since the first session, Hernandez became involved with a youth council through the Detroit Hispanic Development Corp., and she eagerly awaits the chance to become more active with Good Neighborhoods.
An academically top-ranked junior last school year, Hernandez is eager to complete her senior year at Caesar Chavez and study business in college. Her hope is that, through involvement and with Good Neighborhoods’ ongoing support, she will soon see a transformation and greater optimism among her Southwest Detroit peers. “Basically, I would like to see youth in the community change their minds about what they could be and their potential,” she said. “I want them to see that they have the biggest potential in the whole country. I’m sure you’ve heard that the Hispanic population is growing faster than any other, so I want them to realize the advantage they have right here in Southwest Detroit.”
- By Eddie B. Allen Jr., a Detroit-based freelance journalist