Creating Your Vision

What is your vision for the campus and/or community?

Our vision is for a community where all people are able to access resources and opportunities. It is an integrated community in which no one person is isolated or alone. Where all people are able to achieve the success and benefits of equal opportunities in society. Where all members of the community feel represented in the political process.

Our mission is to help young people and the immigrant community in Chicago overcome common obstacles to our vision of full access to opportunities and resources.

Assessing Your Campus and Community

What campus/community problem does your blueprint address? What structures, practices and policies institutionalize the problem?

Our blueprint addresses the common - but often overlooked - pitfalls and obstacles that young people and immigrants face on a daily basis, including excess debt, dealing with apathetic authorities who do not care much for certain groups, sexual health and emotional issues, lack of guidance and a lack of direction/not knowing where to start or who to ask for help when beginning a new life.

The initial phases of our Blueprint will be to identify more of the structures, practices and policies that institutionalize the problems identified by communities members, specifically young people and the immigrant community in Chicago.

What communities will you work with?

• Local community

Setting Goals and Deliverables

• Goal 1: Conduct surveys to find out the exact needs of our target communities.
• Draft the survey.
• Post the survey online.
• Send the survey to 100 people.
• Evaluate the survey to identify the top three issues/concerns among young people and immigrants in our area.
• Goal 2: Create a coalition of community leaders and citizens to discuss the top three problems in the community and find solutions to them.
• Identify three to five community organizations and get in contact with them.
• Schedule a roundtable meeting to discuss a way to address these issues.
• Decide next steps towards working with the coalition.
• Goal 3: Build a database that contains relevant information from other organizations that may help address the problems in the community.
• Gather relevant information from the organizations.
• Connect with other fellows who are working on website development and share strategies and approaches.

What is your primary approach? Network and Alliance Building

Why did you choose this approach?

We have chosen this approach because as it stands, our organization is too small to do any significant organizational work, advocacy or activism, or governance.

Did you have secondary approaches? What are they?

Our secondary approaches will be limited organizing as well as limited advocacy and activism.

What will your tactics and activities be?

- Creating a database of the contact information for places of assistance outside of our organization
- Holding workshops/seminars
- Multimedia efforts (print, video, blogging, internet outreach)
- Holding question and answer sessions with authorities, experts and people who have gone through similar experiences
- Collaborating with larger organizations with similar goals

Connecting Back to Vision

How does your strategy contribute to your vision for your campus and/or your community?

Our vision is to connect all members of our community to each other and to resources and opportunities. We want everyone to be engaged, integrated and treated equally. Our strategy is also about community involvement and how we can all work together to achieve success.

Resources and skills you will need

What skills do you need for this approach?

How to be more efficient with time, how to manage money, how to interact with larger organizations, how to network, and how to find additional resources more efficiently.