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This community research project explored neighborhood resources and supportive people, places and tools identified by adolescents and key community organizations in the Southbridge community of Wilmington, Delaware. Researchers collaborated with Southbridge community groups, Nemours Health and Prevention Services, and Christiana Care’s Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Improving our understanding of how adolescents see and use neighborhood resources has the potential to help discover ways for health providers, parents, teachers, youth-dedicated community organizations, and other stakeholders to improve the management of obesity, other health-related challenges. Resources identified by youth are also an important source of information and support for their academic success, job opportunities, and improving their safety within their community.
We collected information through focus groups and surveys with youth, and interviews with community members. The results identified gaps between available supports and identified challenges observed by youth and community organizations related to health, education, safety, economic development, as well as family and community networks. These findings offer opportunities to understand how residents navigate their community and to better support youth and communities from the perspective of youth living in Wilmington, Delaware.
In the following pages, youth participating in the PhotoVoice component of the project put together quotes and pictures they took to express how they feel about what are assets and barriers to success in their life.
Message to the community:
This is our Call to Action, please take time to review this photobook that our young
people have prepared and see how they view our community. Start to think of ways we
can work together to make a change. The smallest changes sometimes make the
biggest difference.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
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Things we think are
keeping us from being
successful…
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“Bad grades are a barrier in success.”
“Try your best, no rest.”
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“This is why they call us “dirty”
Southbridge.”
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“Stay off the corners because they do nothing but get you in trouble.”
“Without protection, the streets could be
mean.”
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Other pictures of barriers to success…
“Yeah, because my sister
and brother be coming in
there and then my older
sister be coming in there.
There’s no quiet place in
my home”
10
“I remember this one time I
wrote a seven page paper on
my phone because I didn’t
have internet access at home,
so I had to do all my research
on my phone; wrote the
whole paper on this old
phone that I had, and I didn’t
even get the scholarship.”
“You've always got to
walk this way and avoid
that. That's what we
always do to get to
school.”
11
“It’s sort of like with the TV
and the games, once you get
on your phone, you’re on the
social networks and stuff,
you’re not going to really
remember, and you’re not
going to really care about
doing your homework. You’ll
just be like, oh, I’ll do it in the
morning or something, and
you end up just not doing it.”
12
“That's where they be doing
their drugs. …And that's right
next to a school.”
13
“It’s just a picture of a TV, and an Xbox. Basically saying that if you put
all those things, like your entertainment, before your schoolwork, nine
times out of ten, you won’t even finish it because you’ll get tied up in your
games, or you’ll get tied up watching TV, and then you’ll go to school
with incomplete work.”
“It's a barrier, because kids… Sometimes I’ll play on the games, and I’ll be
playing it too long, and sometimes I’ll be forgetting to do my homework.”
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“I want to say my friends,
because if they’re
distracting me, and talking
to me and all that stuff,
then I won’t get my work
done, and then I won’t get
the good grades.”
15
Things we think help us
to be successful…
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“They worked hard to make this for me.”
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“Stay on
track.”
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“Start off easy to be successful.”
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Other pictures of things that make us think of success….
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“People can
come together
and stop it.”
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“That if you practice
hard enough that
you can get – you
can achieve
anything that you try
to do.”
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“And if you have A’s
and B’s, you might be
able to go to college if
you work really hard.”
25
“Hard work is
rewarding.”
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“Math was like, basically about to
hold me back, and I was acting up
and stuff, always trying to be a
goofball, and then the teacher
called my mom and my mom had
this big talk with me from morning
until night
I think that’s the reason, because I
didn’t know how to do it, and I
didn’t want nobody laughing at me
for not being able to do it, so I
would sit there and get mad at my
teacher when she was trying to help
me. And I really thought she was
trying to embarrass me, but she
knew I didn’t know how to do it.”
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“I’m gonna get successful – or be
successful in life and I’m gonna get certain
stuff out of other people that does well, that
does like me…”
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“That no matter what
that they keep trying
until they get it right.”
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“Your skill or talent
isn’t determined by
your gender.”
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FUNDING: Leveraging Neighborhood Social Networks and Social Capital for Childhood Obesity Prevention is a
Delaware Clinical and Translational Research, ACCEL (DE-CTR, ACCEL) pilot study, supported by an
Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National
Institutes of Health under grant number U54-GM104941 (PI: Binder-Macleod).
RESEARCH TEAM: Dr. Tirzah Spencer, (Principal Investigator); Dr. Brian Rahmer, (Co-Principal Investigator),
Rysheema Dixon, (Project Director), Jonathan Wilson, (Project Director); Kristen Isaac (Research Assistant);
Dana Reiss (Research Assistant); Zhongcui Gao (Statistician); Denise Hughes (PhotoVoice Trainer); Jan Abrams
(Administrative Support) [For additional information contact Tirzah Spencer; [email protected]].
ADVISORY GROUP: Dr. Yasser Payne, (mentor); Dr. Sandra Hassink; Dr. Alisa Haushalter; Dr. Diane
Abatemarco; Dr. Joyce Essien; Dr. Laurens Holmes
We want to take time out to thank everyone who made this
project a success, we couldn’t have done this without you!
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Southbridge Youth, Southbridge Community Partners, Neighborhood
House Inc., South Wilmington Planning Network, Peninsula
Compost, Councilwoman Hanifa Shabazz, CCHS Camp Fresh,
Christina Cultural Arts Center- Internship Program, Wilmington Parks
and Recreation
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the
only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
“Togetherness, togetherness, and that’s
what Southbridge reminds me of.”
– youth participant