Can you really make a difference?

He was in his mid to late 40s and constantly battling drug addiction. Coke, heroine, gambling and weed were his vices. He wanted a job and to move into a nice place but he couldn't keep a job long enough to get approval to move in. He didn't have a job but spent alot of time milking the system to manage a household of eight. He was born and raised in the Projects and just wanted to finally get his life together. "This time, this time its going to happen. I'm clean, I can do this. This time, I can do it," he said. By interviewing him, I briefly got schooled in how to sell drugs, who to pay, what product to pick, why it doesn't work anymore. He told us everything and his life story in this interview and then he asked us the pounding question.

"Do you really think this will change something?"

We gulped and laughed nervously. We don't know, we can only try we said. He then pointed towards IDA B. wells and asked.

"What happens to them? They don't have jobs, they do all sorts of bad stuff. I was bad, I know what they do. What happens to them when you tear it down? Are you just gonna let them collect somewhere else? You can't just sweep them under the rug ya know. If you don't take care of them, they'll just flounce around and wreak havoc elsewhere."

We nervously agreed and told him we'd try our best.

When I took this course, I knew what I was getting into. When I joined this school, I knew I'd be learning about people. Now I'm getting schooled daily by people, not just school and there are new expectations to deliver. After our interviews I walked around the elementary school looking at student work. Colorful, clean with papers and cute small furniture, you would have trouble believing the school was almost torn down for being dismally bad. Here are some drawings I saw on the walls. It is new motivation to try my best. If only children were journalists and if only politicians had to answer children as part of their debates, maybe change would actually happen then.