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The CYSC (Community Youth Service Corps) team of Phalanx Family Services, decided to focus on the far South Side communities being plagued with many challenges that keep our youth oppressed. We experience housing instability, medical inequality, low access to living wage employment, crime, and other challenges that lend to holistic health challenges.
In order to strengthen our community we have created a platform that will provide information and resources for our community. We seek to reveal how external challenges affect our mind, body, and spirit and move forward to create a healthier, more productive self.
We have taken the initiative of bringing awareness to our community through many efforts of civic engagement. We hosted and attended several community events to bring awareness on the disparities that exist in our community and how we can provide healthy resources to heal.
One organization with which we had the honor of partnering within our community is “ POP Park Heights” the City of Chicago’s Public Outdoor Plaza (POP) program. Designed to help community-based organizations revitalize underutilized land along neighborhood retail corridors. Far South Community Development Corporation (Far South CDC) partnered with Sheldon Heights Church of Christ to develop the multi-use outdoor space on one of Chicago’s busiest commercial corridors, South Halsted.
The park development is part of a larger vision of the “Bringing Communities Back Initiative” (BCBI), which aims to repurpose vacant and/or blighted areas into thriving community anchors that will provide safe healthy spaces and spur economic growth. The goal is to repopulate communities on Chicago’s far south side that have experienced decades of chronic disinvestment.
Our CYSC team had the opportunity of interviewing the Developers of the project who had so much to say about CYSC’s efforts of promoting Health and Wellness in the community, not only through our Yoga and holistically healthy classes but also by spreading the word in the community through our Podcast and Journalist team.
Images Courtesy of Phalanx Family Services
