Mentoring Kit: Spanish and English

Posted by on September 19, 2003

[K-12 Service-Learning listserv]

Congress has provided funding to the Good Knight Child Empowerment Network, Inc. so we could offer 15,000 Homeland Security Youth Mentoring Kits complimentary to organizations nationwide. Additionally, Congress provided funding so we could offer 38,000 bilingual (Spanish/English) crime prevention activity books complimentary to locations nationwide. We need your assistance in sharing information about these complimentary materials with your organization and others so that these crime prevention materials can benefit the children in your community. This is a wonderful program that inspires safety, mentoring and community involvement.

The Good Knight Child Empowerment Network, Inc. is a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization dedicated to protecting children from crime and violence. Our program is nationally recognized as unique and highly effective as a prevention program. We have been featured in Parade Magazine as well as on America’s Most Wanted, 48 Hours and The Today Show. Our program is also the recipient of one of the most prestigious awards given by the President of the United States to civilians: the President’s Service Award Silver Medal. We received this award in 1999 directly from President Clinton for our efforts in the area of Public Safety.

After September 11th, children and adults asked how they could help to protect their loved ones and their communities, yet most of us did not know the best way to support President Bush’s “Call to Action”. Congress realized that the Good Knight Crime Prevention Program provides a solution to this problem by teaching our youngest citizens how to recognize suspicious behavior to prevent crimes against children that could continue a cycle of “terrorism” in the future. Whether the terrorist is Osama Bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh or the school yard bully, if we support our children by teaching them how to avoid becoming victims of crime, and teach them to deal with conflicts in a peaceful manner, we will break the cycle of violence and prevent the bullies of today from becoming the terrorists of tomorrow. Our program goes one step further and empowers youth by making them Knight’s Champions through peer mentoring. Once youth learn to protect themselves from any form of violence by redefining the traditional definition of stranger, they become Youth Mentors and are asked to teach what they have learned to at least ten others.

Additional information about this program can be found at our website – http://www.goodknight.org. Those interested in learning more on how to obtain the Spanish/English crime prevention materials can email contact information to goodknighthood@aol.com.

One of our new young mentors demonstrates the empowerment aspect in a letter she wrote after completing the program. Lady Kathryn wrote: “In response to receiving the safety tips video, I returned to my former elementary school to show it to one hundred second and third graders. To see the expressions on their faces would have made anyone smile. They were so excited to see that they could teach themselves how to stay safe with the help of the video.”

Please visit our website (http://www.goodknight.org) to learn more about this valuable project. Thank you.