Promise Neighborhoods Program

Harlem program singled out as model, By Robin Shulman, August 2, 2009, Washington Post: “On a recent Saturday morning in Harlem, a few dozen pregnant women in a parenting class made resolutions for life after the baby’s birth. Avoid cursing. Provide healthy foods. Develop a sleeping routine for the infant. “I want my son to be perfect,” said Naquell Williams, 22, who is unemployed and pregnant with a child whose father is in prison. This is the starting point for the Harlem Children’s Zone: the womb. Geoffrey Canada’s nonprofit has created a web of programs that begin before birth, end with college graduation and reach almost every child growing up in 97 blocks carved out of the struggling central Harlem neighborhood…”