Colin Powell on Welfare & Poverty
Promise Five: Opportunities for community service
Even though youth are more likely to volunteer than adults, fewer than half of all youth consistently serve others. A result is that they miss this powerful opportunity for growth. Giving children and adolescents opportunities to serve others
is an important strategy in shaping America’s future. Besides school-based community service, youth can contribute via: - Religious congregations
- Neighborhood teams
- Service clubs
- Family volunteering
- Youth organizations
- Schools
Service-learning experiences enhance self-esteem, a sense of personal competence and efficacy, engagement with school, and social responsibility for others. Youth are much less likely to volunteer if they are not asked. Powell
says, “I believe to the depth of my heart that a teenager who has spent a few hours a week helping a younger child learn to read, or spent a few hours at a hospice helping an older person reach the end of their life in dignity, is a changed person.”
Source: America’s Promise Web Page
Jan 8, 2001
Teach kids volunteerism while young
As we are giving [the] necessities to our children, let’s ask them to also give something back to the community of which they are a part. Early in life, help them learn of the joy that comes from giving to others, help them learn that through service to
others, service to community, they will put virtues in their heart that will make them absolutely beautiful adults when they grow up; and that what’s important in life is giving to others, not whether your sneakers cost more than someone else’s sneakers.
Source: Speech at the Republican convention
Jul 30, 2000
Reform the entitlement state, not just the welfare state
It is the entitlement state that must be reformed, and not just the welfare state. The good jobs needed to sustain families come from a faster-growing economy where the free enterprise system is unleashed to create wealth. Wealth which produces new
industries which produce more good jobs. In this richest nation on earth, we still have not solved the problems of poverty which tear away at the roots of strong families. And for which government assistance is a poor substitute for good jobs.
Source: Speech to the Republican National Convention
Aug 12, 1996