What is the general situation of youth employment in the District of Columbia, our nations capital? It can pretty much be summed up in one word.
Bad.
If we want to use two or more, we could add:
Awful
Terrible
Depressing
Sorrowful
Want some statistics?
The total unemployment rate nationally is 10.0%. That's pretty bad.
The total unemployment rate in DC is 11.8%. Nearly two points worse.
The unemployment rate of 16-24 year old high school graduate is 31.9%
The unemployment rate of 16-24 year old high school dropouts is 54.3%.
Think about that. Think about all the kids IN OUR NATIONS CAPITAL who don't have a high school education, don't have a job, most likely don't have a source of income, and are most likely living in poverty. OUR NATIONS CAPITAL.
That is a lot of kids. A lot.
That's bad news, if I say so myself.
Now, for some good news.
Experts predict that in the next two years, around 2 MILLION green jobs could be created. They say that in DC Metro Area, there could be between 40 and 85 thousand new GREEN JOBS created. People auditing houses, weatherizing buildings, installing solar panels, fixing bikes, any more other jobs.
THESE ARE THE JOBS AMERICA NEEDS!
These are the jobs that the youth of DC need, really bad.
OK, so now we know the facts and the predictions. Are we going to make it happen? Yes. Are we going to settle for the minimum? Absolutely not. Are we going to do all we can to train the youth and create the jobs they need?
ABSOLUTELY!
Well, you may ask, how are we going to do that?
I'll lay it out for you plain and simple:
Three simple, yet hard, steps.
- Motivate the youth of the city.
Many of the young people I have talked to had no idea what a green job was. They had NO IDEA. That is sad. When the clean energy sector could turn into one of the largest job sectors in the future, and the people of the future don't know what it is? That is bad. We need to tell them what green jobs are, why they are important, and how they can affect the lives of the youth.
- Train the youth of the city.
Right now there is a dearth of green job training programs in the DC area. The ones that do exist, cost thousands of dollars, most times more than a 19 year old without a job can afford. We need to create those programs. We need to find the instructors. We need to make it happen.
- Push for the creation of green jobs.
Whether it be through pushing the government to weatherize all of their buildings, just like Obama proposed, or through pushing your next door neighbor to weatherize their house, it needs to be done. Yes, it is great to train the people, but the jobs need to be created as well. Organizations like WeatherizeDC and Green DMV are already starting to do this and are already seeing AWESOME results. WeatherizeDC is nearing 200 houses in the DC area weatherized in the last 6 months and Green DMV is pressuring the government to really follow through with their promises.
What am I doing and how can you help?
I just applied for a $25,000 Pepsi Refresh Everything grant (www.refresheverything.com). The idea behind the grant is to create the program to train the disadvantaged youth of the city. If I win, I'll use the money to partner with organizations such as Green DMV and WeatherizeDC to create a training program that will provide the youth with national certification (BPI and RESNET) to complete green jobs in and around the nations capital. THE ENTIRE TRAINING WILL BE FREE! That's the best part. It will allow those youth who don't have the money to get trained, to be trained and get a job. It will really make a difference.
If you want a little more in depth view into it, you can visit the blog at www.dcyouthgreenjobs.blogspot.com.
How can you help?
The grants are awarded through a PUBLIC VOTING SYSTEM! That means that YOU can help me win this money and create this AWESOME PROGRAM. Really, you can. You can vote ONCE EVERY DAY starting TODAY (February 1st) and lasting until March 1st.
You can vote in 6 simple steps that will take less than a minute, its really easy:
- Go to our page
http://www.refresheverything.com/...
- Click VOTE! in the top right corner!
- Sign in using Facebook or create an account with an email (You can even do both and get us TWO votes per day! That would be awesome!)
- Click VOTE again after you have signed in!
- Tell all your friends in person about the project, "share" it with all of your friends and/or followers on Facebook and Twitter, email your contact list, call your next door neighbor, write a sticky note on your refrigerator for the rest of the family, you guys get the idea.
- Remind everyone to vote!
- Vote again the next day, and the next, and so on and so forth!
You can make a difference. We can make a difference.
Thank you all for reading (and hopefully voting),
Jesse Pollak