Showing Youths a New World

Showing Youths a New World
City Year Program Mentors Aim to Change Lives, One Student at a Time
By Joanna Chakerian
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, June 18, 2009

Anthony Buenafe was sure he could motivate the kids in his sixth-grade class to do something besides playing with paper footballs or fighting.

So he brought his childhood chess set into school.

Buenafe was starting a year as a mentor to students at Stanton Elementary School in Anacostia, and he wanted to make it count. To make sure everyone had a chance to play, he scoped out holiday sales at toy stores and bought more chess sets with his money.

Months later, in the spring, the entire class could be found sitting quietly and playing the game at the end of the school day.

“It’s not like where you see in commercials or movies, where you know that an adult is going to come in there and stand out in that child’s life,” Buenafe said. “When you’re in the moment, you don’t know how much work you have to pour into a child.

“It doesn’t happen in the span of two hours, like in a movie,” he said. “There’s a lot of resistance, and you don’t know when that tipping point is going to be. It may never come.”

Here is the full story.