New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
One way to turn the tide against the opioid epidemic (and everything else for that matter) is obviously prevention. Prevention at the high, even middle and elementary school level.
Putting in place a safety net (for many reasons) instead of throwing kids to the streets when the overwhelm us, like myself at one point, kicked out of high school because of behavior issues which stemmed from issues at home.
When we push or allow kids to fall through the cracks we open the gateway wide open to drug use, drug dealing, and gangs among other things. If we want to disrupt this pipeline, the school system in New Bedford must allow the people that know, can, and ARE WILLING to work with kids and families having problems instead of monopolizing the system to be only controlled from the inside – it isn’t working.
It has been, as of late, more about numbers and business than the kids, people, and matters of the heart. I, along with many other New Bedford citizens, are wiling to volunteer to make the things that need to happen, for the future of our kids and our community, happen.
This isn’t a money issue as many claim, it’s a heart issue. New Bedford will be greater than ever before, when we stop letting the same people make decisions that haven’t produced anything better.
We need young blood willing to take calculated risks, produce innovative ideas and strategies, implementing them and thinking outside the box to rise up. and those that can’t produce any longer to pass the baton. We are out here and ready. People just don’t want to listen because we are young.
The truth is many of the people who decide for our city and kids have never been there and done that. Reading about struggle in a book at Panera Bread or something. Many of us have been there and done that and know first hand what real struggle is and how to overcome. We have valuable incite and experience that could lead us into the right direction.
Lets stop talking from a business standpoint and thinking about how my organization, agency, and/or business can get the money, or the grants etc and lets start coming together to effectively meet people where they are at, find the void, and fill it.
Edwin Cartagena
#unitednewbedford #change #realtalk
