Inquiry Project Details

My inquiry project deals with the affect of community-based organizations and the future success of young adults in Urban communities. I am focusing towards how these organizations can create programs that lead to the future educational success of the students. I have researched this topic and found that these organizations can have a positive influence on the young adults in these communities. There are various programs developed by these organizations that can stop some of the negative influences within the community. These behaviors, known as “at risk” behaviors, can lead to students becoming less focused on their current education; therefore leading to more students dropping out and not leading a successful life. These programs are also seen as a way to promote an education for these students after high school. They take away the “ghetto” mentality and show them that they can achieve great things as long as they stay on the correct path.
This topic touched close to home because I am from an urban community and am currently working with a community-based organization that had various programs to keep the young adults of the area focused on going to college and making something out of their lives. I will use various forms of data to come up with a conclusion and somewhat definitive answer to the question I have posed. One form of data would be my past experiences with this and various other community-based organizations that I was a part of as a child. Another form of data would be all of the journal articles that I have through Google Scholar and the JTSOR database. These articles give me actual data from tests that have been performed to find the impact of the programs created by community-based organizations. Most of them show the positive influences that are give by the programs. I will also use my current job with a community-based organization to provide more facts and information into the business and political processes that have to occur in order to create and get funding for a successful program. Finally, I will try to get in contact with administrators and city officials from Newark to find out which programs are currently offerred in the area that are on the future success of the young adults of Newark. Some of the questions may be: How does the government help the community-based organizations fund these programs? Do you believe that these programs are successful? If not, what would you do differently to improve it? In the end, I believe that the information attained from this project will help me get a great deal of research done for when I begin the process of developing my own programs to assist children/young adults in the urban communities.