Susan L.Taylor also known as Greatness! For nearly 40 years she was the leading force behind Essence magazine. A true voice for black women everywhere, I remember as a child my mom would have her monthly column up on her mirror and as I got older I would read them, her words always so soothing and encouraging, bit by bit, without even recognizing it I began to love me just a little bit more. In a sense she was like my mentor from a far and for that matter, my mother’s too. Perhaps living out her life’s ultimate mission in 2006 she founded what I believe to be the number one mentoring program of today, the National CARES Mentoring Movement. The organization is dedicated to recruiting and connecting mentors with local youth-serving and mentoring organizations to help guide struggling Black children to academic and social success, and to closing the huge gap between the relatively few Black mentors and millions of our vulnerable children. Currently in 56 cities around the country, Cares is on a mission to recruit 1 million black mentors.
Back in October I had the pleasure of seeing the still vibrant Susan L. Taylor be honored for her work in the Bronx, NY by Black Girls Rock! How amazingly deserving was that honor, because indeed what she is on a mission to do is inspire and change lives. Here’s how you can join her mission and why nobody does Mentoring like she does!
I highly encourage you to take some time and visits the National CARES Mentoring website www.caresmentoring.org. There in just a simple short paragraph under the title of Why Mentor, all the reasoning one should need to use our lives for good are stated:
You can save a precious life…and nourish your own. Harsh and cruel experiences have led many of our young to believe that they are alone in the world and that no one cares. The National CARES Mentoring Movement seeks to dispel that notion by providing young people with role models who will play an active role in helping to shape their development. By mentoring a young person, you can help redirect the course of his or her life.
Taylor says the day she learned that 80 percent of Black fourth graders were reading below grade level, she began planning her exit from Essence. Today, 86 percent of Black fourth graders and 83 percent of Hispanic fourth graders are reading below grade level in the most privileged nation in the world.
These are the chilling facts:
- 40% of Black children are born into poverty
- 86% of Black children cannot read or do math at grade level
- 70% of incarcerated people, regardless of race, are challenged readers
- Black girls ages 13-24 account for the majority of new HIV infections
- Homicide is the leading cause of death for our black boys
Those facts are indeed chilling, but if each of us can contribute a portion of our time to mentor our youth, perhaps we will see a better future and a huge change in these statistics!
