City Builders participants and leaders meet 6th District Richmond City Council Member Ellen Robertson outside her house. (Photo by Tina Eshleman)
First, there are deli sandwiches and conversations about going to the prom, the end of the school year, summer jobs and career plans. Then things get down to business in the corner conference room at the Six Points Innovation Center in Highland Park, a hub for youth activities and home to six area nonprofits plus a social enterprise.
The youth and adults gathered around the table are here for City Builders, a yearlong project in partnership with the mentoring program Community 50/50 that seeks to cultivate urban leaders. Since starting in February, the group of 17 teenagers and young adults has talked about discriminatory lending practices, gentrification and the role of planning decisions in segregation. They’ve learned how to use public transit, observed a student-run protest of gun violence and walked the trail leading from the Manchester docks where captive Africans arrived to the Shockoe Bottom slave markets.
On this evening in late May, they’ll walk through Highland Park with cameras and identify neighborhood assets and challenges.
“Through pictures, you’re going to highlight change you’d like to see,” says Ashley Waddell, a group facilitator who’s participating as a member of the Richmond Association of Black Social Workers. Other organizations partnering in City Builders are Storefront for Community Design, Saving Our Youth, RVA Rapid Transit and Groundwork RVA, with programming assistance from Untold RVA.
After setting out on foot, the group stops at 3014 Meadowbridge Road, the site of a former church.
“Is it an asset?” asks Jo White, leader of Saving Our Youth. “Is it a community challenge? At this point, it’s a community challenge because it’s sitting there vacant.”
Jonathan Scott photographs a house in Highland Park. (Photo by Tina Eshleman)
Jonathan Scott, a 2017 John Marshall High School graduate, photographs an empty house. It’s a shame it’s not being used, he says. “Some people don’t have homes.”
Jada Battle, an Open High School student ending her freshman year, takes a picture of a bus stop where there’s no bench for people to sit while waiting.
After soliciting input from the community, the youth will use their photos to make policy recommendations to city leaders and suggestions for nonprofit projects.
“They’ll take all this information and be able to vote on some changes that the residents want to see happen,” says Jacqulyn “Jackie” Washington, Six Points site coordinator and community engagement liaison with Storefront for Community Design.
“City Builders is poised to be the youth engagement for the master plan, at least for this neighborhood,” she adds. “You could look at Highland Park as their case study.”
