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Mission
Our mission is to ensure that all residents have access to information and resources that create opportunities and power for them as a collective. The main component of our goal is to organize and mobilize community residents to stimulate and create social change in a manner that the residents define as change. Youth are an integral part of every community. Since the needs of families with children have been ignored from community development plans, our focus has been helping develope a voice for youth and advocating for families with children. We work with youth, because youth do not remain youth. They grow into adults. Our argument is that communities become stable and prosperous through having residents with strong ties to the community. Therefore, we are working to help youth and families with children lend their voice to help decide what Woodlawn and surrounding communities need to help them enter mainstream America and maintain a first-rate quality of life.
Unlike many traditional nonprofits that focus their work in one category service provision or community organizing, MAGIC believes that in order to create real and lasting change in our communities, we must simultaneously address multiple aspects of the issues that youth and their families are facing by building power and delivering an innovative program that meets the needs of the community.
MAGIC works primarily with youth from Woodlawn, but also serves youth from Washington Park, Kenwood, Oakland and Englewood. These are some of Chicago's most severely under-resourced neighborhoods.
Of the youth we work with in our programs are:
• 100% are low-income
• 20% have had involvement with the juvenile justice system and
• 100% are African-American.
We will work with the young man who has been kicked out of every other program if he demonstrates initiative.
We will work with young women who do not have a home telephone, a parent at home or is not in school, if she shows a desire to attain self-sufficiency.
We have chosen to work with this demographic because this is our community, and many organizations do not serve this demographic without associated stigmas.
We will work with youth who are not in school, homeless or fresh out of jail, if they show a desire to attain self-sufficiency.
For many, MAGIC is the only place that is willing to offer them an opportunity to grow and achieve their potential.
MAGIC youth are the ones who will be able to conceptualize a vision of change for they are the ones who have lived through all that needs to be changed.
We are proud to provide that opportunity to these strong, young people who truly do have the power within them to envision and create a more just society.
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History
In the summer of 2000, MAGIC’s founder Joseph Strickland returned to Woodlawn with plans to convert a 2-flat brownstone that has been owned by his family since the 1950s to trendy condominiums that seemed to sprouting in previous desolate areas. The brownstone was planned to be the first of many real estate ventures. A parent of one of Joseph’s elementary school classmates still lived on the block where Joseph’s family lived explained to him how easy it was now for children in Woodlawn to be drawn into gangs and drugs. Almost immediately, Joseph and his wife began to see the reality of what the neighbor spoke of. He reflected on his childhood in Woodlawn and how even though it may have appeared to be a ghetto to others, for children there were swimming pools, sports programs, theatres, sock hops and how all of that seemed to be replaced with nothingness. He decided to scrap the plan to develop real estate and develop youth programs instead.
After months of running into brick walls trying to gain support for his vision, Joseph enrolled at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration (SSA) to obtain a graduate degree in social work, which he felt would provide him the tools to go forth with his vision. It was at SSA that Joseph, his classmates, and members of the community began to organize parents to talk about some of the challenges they faced trying to raise children in Woodlawn. In addition, this group worked on community projects like being part of the founding group the Southside Community Credit Union that gave them an opportunity to knock on doors and establish relationships with community members. In 2001, the SSA group and community residents incorporated the organization Joseph had envisioned as Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization, Inc. (MAGIC).
MAGIC began in 2001 as an organization designed to tackle the unmet needs of Woodlawn residents. We spent our first two and half years doing community research and focus groups to determine if there was a fit for a new organization in Woodlawn. During this two-year period informal and formal community assessments demonstrated that the most underserved population was youth from low-income families. In the fall of 2003, we were ready to begin our work and our first step was to hire Bryan Echols as our Executive Director. Having Bryan on board helped shape the form MAGIC’s response to youth and their families would take. MAGIC’s mission has become to organize and development youth in Woodlawn and surrounding areas to stimulate social change. MAGIC can be categorized as a youth service organization focused on both youth development and youth empowerment. However, unlike many traditional nonprofits that focus their work in one category of service provision, MAGIC believes that in order to create real and lasting change in our communities, we must simultaneously address multiple aspects of the issues that youth and their families are facing by building power and delivering an innovative portfolio of youth empowerment programs that would motivate and inspire youth. The work we do can be grouped into four domains: critical thinking, community building, community organizing and advocacy. We meet young people where they are, whether on the streets or a more formal community setting and we offer them an opportunity to learn about and address the many challenges they are facing in their lives and in their communities.
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Goals
MAGIC’s overall strategy for accomplishing change is to help youth become change agents of the conditions and policies that hinder their chances of prosperous and healthy adults. The goal of course is to “build” adults who will in turn build a better community. Our work is done by connecting families through our joint concern for youth. Most of the MAGIC staff and volunteers are “transformed” individuals who have overcome many of the challenges our youth face and who can offer their own experience as teaching and training elements. The foundation of our strategy is to recruit teens into our programs (leadership development, organizing training, teen media training and mural arts) so that they can receive a baseline of training on leadership development, life skills and community organizing. The second level is to provide them tools for research and analyzing issues, conducting community assessments and media analysis. The next step is for them to begin to apply the information, knowledge and techniques they have acquired through teen-led conferences, issue campaigns and activism. The application of advocacy and activism by MAGIC teens is done primarily in three focused areas: health and wellness, economic development and education and training.
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Staff
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Joseph Strickland, Founder of MAGIC
Dr. Strickland also conducts community based research at University of Illinois at Chicago in the Jane Addams School of Social Work Policy Center.
His research interests focus on the challenges of Black males trying to overcome past traumatic experiences such as incarceration, being a gun shot victim or participating in street gangs.
In addition to research he teaches a Community Violence course to MSW students.
Youth are the ones who will be able to conceptualize a vision of change for they are the ones who have lived through all that needs to be changed.
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Vanessa Muhammad, MA, LCSW Candidate, Co-Founder
Vanessa is a graduate student at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.
As a clinical social worker intern, she is able to assist youth with the application of methods, principles and techniques of casework, group work, community organization, administration, planning, consultation, research and psychotherapeutic methods and techniques to persons, families and groups to help in the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional conditions.
Vanessa is an agent of personal and social change, and advocate for the amelioration of human need.
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Bryan Echols, Executive Director
As the Executive Director for MAGIC, Bryan Echols has launched exciting programs for teens, such as a mural arts programs, youth organizing training, and the NCP-funded gem Woodlawn String Instrument Program.
In addition to his MAGIC duties, Bryan has chaired the Woodlawn Social Service Network, comprised of human service providers who meet regularly to help facilitate collaboration and cooperation on issues.
Bryan works hard to connect the dots between issues and to pull practitioners out of their silos to create and establish sustainable collaborative efforts. He firmly knows that reinventing the wheel is a waste of precious time and feels that allowing others to do what they do best is the only way to build a movement. His main interests are reconnecting the Diaspora and Africa along with improving the quality of life for Black men and boys. Finally, he works closely with multi-ethnic coalitions to build power for marginalized and disenfranchised communities nationwide.
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Chairman of the Board, Alex Gardner
F. Alex Gardner, 57, is the current board chair for MAGIC and the interim Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
In addition to his duties at MAGIC, Mr. Gardner is the Chairman and CEO for FFH Bancorp, a privately-held minority bank holding company. Mr. Gardner is a thirty-plus years veteran of the banking, investment and financial services arenas.
From 2002 through 2007, he was the Vice-President and Director of Community Development and Lending for Mid-America Bank, fsb which was acquired by National City Corp in 2007. Mr. Gardner has also held management positions with Marquette Bank, Bank One, Chase Econometrics, and the Service Bureau Companies. He has also owned and operated several entrepreneurial ventures.
Active in civic affairs, Mr. Gardner is also a board member of a number of community-based organizations including NHS of Chicago, National Urban Initiatives, Mortgage Bankers’ Association. He sat on the Governor’s Anti-Predatory Lending Committee as well as Fannie Mae’s National Advisory Committee.
A product of the south side of Chicago, Mr. Gardner is an economist by education and attended Northwestern and Pepperdine Universities. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and is the father of four sons and two daughters.
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