Teens push for change
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on February 24, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Azurah Faison, 13, center, and other high-school-age members of The Village talk about some of the problems children their age deal with on a daily basis. Some of the issues common in the group include well lit, well paved sidewalks for travel and the feeling that the education system has given up on them. They hope to change things for younger generations by getting involved in the community.
Change is coming to Goldsboro.
Not by way of elected officials, and not by way of money.
It isn't a new apartment complex, a multimillion-dollar investment or even a new shopping center.
This change is much more organic, and it's coming by way of teenagers -- ones that go to Goldsboro High School, specifically.
The Akebulan Village M.A.A.T., led by 34-year-old Ravonda Jacobs, is a group of approximately a half dozen teenagers, all aged 13 to 18 years old, that started in 2009 in an effort to change their community for the better.
M.A.A.T. stands for maturing attitudes, accountable thinkers -- a concept that resonates in the issues the group seeks to tackle.
What the group seeks to change are things that most people likely do not give a second thought, but are things these children encounter every day in the neighborhoods they live in on the North End of Goldsboro.
They want better sidewalks, better streets, more streetlights and more investment in parts of Goldsboro that aren't downtown.
They say that they do not feel safe to walk in their own community, and a lack of sidewalks and general infrastructure makes walking to and from school a chore.
After dark, the teenagers say walking through the city becomes a terrifying gallivant into potential danger.
"I know they say what happens in the dark will come to the light, but as a young woman when you're walking down the street and a streetlight goes out, if you pop up missing the next morning nobody will know what happened to you because nobody could see," said 16-year-old Sharmane Powell.
This fear does not grip only young women.
Trevon Ellis, 16, said walking his sister home through neighborhoods in Goldsboro is a nerve-wracking experience.
"It's just crazy how they spent all that money downtown and we have nothing down here," Trevon said. "I've been walking around here like all I do is walk, and I just see bad stuff happening everywhere. I hear gunshots, and it makes me scared walking around the streets seeing like 10 guys walking around the street on the same street I am, and I'm just walking with my sister and there's nowhere to go, and I'm just like, 'What am I gonna do?' I just get scared."
All around where the children live, in some of Goldsboro's most impoverished neighborhoods, they see dark roads -- some still made of dirt -- crumbling sidewalks and dilapidated houses.
This, they say, is a stark contrast in comparison to Goldsboro's downtown, where millions of dollars of federal and city money were spent on a multi-year Streetscape project to repave roads, install roundabouts and public artwork, a fountain, newer, wide sidewalks, new streetlights and more.
The Village has brought these concerns before the Goldsboro City Council as recently as the council's last meeting in February.
"It kinda makes it feels almost as if we're in two entirely different places," 13-year-old Azurah Faison said. "They were so anxious to build the downtown, and some elected officials were happy about trying to help us do what we presented to them but some of them were just kind of brushing it off. For me to have been here my whole life, I've seen the way things used to look, the way they look now and the way the downtown is. Some of the people around here feel the same way, but sometimes if they're not put in a positive position to where they can voice their opinions nobody is going to give their opinion and nothing will be done about it. It just feels kinda as though they didn't care. They just cared about how it made them look as elected officials, that their city had the prettiest downtown. But the people that live a mile radius away from them, they go to a school where they can't even take their books home to do their homework, and they live on a dirt road in houses that are dilapidated and can't earn a living. So it makes it feel as if that they're treating us as disadvantaged people but they have the opportunity to give us the amenities that we need."
Living in areas that are run down and where the teenagers do not feel safe takes on toll on their outlook on life, the group said.
"When you're put in an area that looks like poverty, and the people in the area treat you like you're in poverty, you start to act like you're in poverty," Sharmane said. "You might start stealing and the crime rate goes up. That's a very bad look for the city. People aren't given enough resources, and it's come to be something that's expected of them."
Two girls in the group -- sisters Sage and Sharmane Powell -- moved to Goldsboro from Baltimore in September 2014, just as the most recently completed phase of Streetscape downtown had begun.
For them, the difference between where they came from and where they arrived was immediately palpable.
"They spent millions of dollars on just downtown," 15-year-old Sage said. "But the people in the community can't get a dollar to go towards education, getting streetlights, new books, new jobs -- but we're the ones who've gotta live here. We're the ones that gotta go outside, drive, walk and see everything. It's kind of a disappointing feeling because you feel as though this is your home; you should want to feel safe and comfortable around your own environment. But knowing that Goldsboro is more focused on building stuff downtown than their own kids and the coming generations and the kids of the future, and if they're not giving enough to their kids then the future isn't going to look too bright or too good for us. So, knowing that they're spending money on building things rather than giving us books kind of makes us feel as though we're less important, like we're not worth what we need."
One of the key things the group is working to change is negative attitudes they see throughout the community. If attitudes change, other changes can begin to happen also, they said.
"That's the main thing for us, is we want to get our people's minds ready for the community changes," Ms. Jacobs said. "Because even if we build a new school or a community center, if their mind and their heart hasn't changed, it'll still turn out bad. Right now we're trying to feed their spirit and feed their heart so they feel like there's a hope for a better future."
To change this, The Village is doing small things on a weekly basis to positively influence their community.
They are going beyond making presentations to elected officials, working at the grass-roots level in their communities every day to make the change they seek become a reality.
"We've got to have the attitude to care about these people out here, because if you go out here and just tell people to go do something just to do it, then they're just going to be out here with bad attitudes and nothing's going to get done," said 17-year-old Tara Harris. "You've got to really take the time to talk to these people and see what their opinions are and get them to voice them in the right manner so we can actually get stuff done."
On any given Friday night, they can be found meeting in Pinky's Hair Palace at 301 A St., which is owned by Ms. Jacobs, whose nickname is "Pinky."
On a recent Friday night, the group of teenagers taught children in the West Haven community about black history -- with the help of Ms. Jacobs -- and they taught them how to make sweet potato pies and banana doughnuts.
They also offer a literacy program to the community, reading to children in communities in need to promote literacy among Goldsboro's population. The Village also meets every day after school to figure out things they can do that will benefit their community, as well as critically thinking about the big issues of our time that face today's youth and adults.
The Village does these things because they know change needs to begin somewhere, because they want the community to know that there are people that do care about them.
"We do it because we care," Sage said. "People have to understand once we're gone, people underneath us are going to care, so we want to keep this going on and on. We want to get better, not worse, so when they get older they're going to teach people younger than them. You have to be consistent, you have to flow. It can't stop. So, what we're doing now for these kids, they really look up to us, especially because we're older. They see us do it and think if we're doing it, it must be cool. Trust me, they see us doing it now, so when they get older, they're going to give back."
And they have plenty of ideas on how to improve the things they identify as troubling to their own communities.
Some of the fixes are as simple as better sidewalks and installing more streetlights in darker areas of the city.
"When I'm walking down the street, I cannot see nothing," Trevon said. "The other day, I was walking and a streetlight just cut off out of nowhere. I was scared. I did not know what to do. It just kept blinking on and off. I just kept walking faster ... we just walk scared."
Other fixes are more extensive, such as creating more things to do in the community for children, getting people to develop more positive attitudes throughout the community and funneling more money into Wayne County's education system.
"I'd like to see something happen with the gyms," 18-year-old Shikeme Ellis said. "Like me, I'm a basketball player. In the summer time, I love to go out on the courts and play. But in the winter time, I don't wanna go out there in the cold where I can hardly feel my hands. I'd like to see some gyms open up, and see some AAU teams pop up so people can really get to do something. That's why people are joining gangs and stuff here, 'cause they don't got nothing to do. If you open up arcades and gyms and stuff, they'll have places to go."