Enjoy this mix of hip-hop and Afrobeat by Bathsheba Smithen featuring Sey Byth, and produced by PhynestBeat.

Imagine visiting a third world county for the first time. You are traveling to adopt a child through an agency. The agency provides you the profile of a 10-year-old girl that looks emaciated; she’s probably no more than 60 pounds. Her hair is unkempt, and broken off from not having it done correctly, and her clothes are disheveled. She has on stockings with high top worn down pink and white sneakers and a fancy white ruffled church dress, but her eyes are huge and full of life, so you anticipate adopting this child with excitement. She’s the middle child of nine children, living in a bad neighborhood and is being raised by a single mother who makes less than $10K a year from government assistance. Prior to the adoption, you must spend at least two months in her home, observing her lifestyle and living conditions to help her transition once you bring her back to the United States. Upon your entry into her home, you quickly notice the walls are a dingy white with hand smears running across them (probably from the children in the home), and the molding in various places is corroded. As you travel up 13 rubber encased stairs, you spot clothing and underwear with holes in them hanging to dry from the doors that have slight mold running beneath the clothing. You can smell the stench of mold, but the children carry on and are unbothered. As you continue searching for your promised child, you look down to find the floor tiles are slightly chipped and the toilet in the bathroom is surrounded by dried up urine. Roaches have infested the place; climbing in and outside of crevices and scurrying across kitchen countertops. All food in the cabinets are encased by Belo grocery bags and there are roach eggs in the refrigerator, freezer, and stove drawer which makes you question how anyone would be able to safely eat here.

In one room there is a mattress on the floor and a huge television atop a dresser. The room next door to it is closed and has a child’s name written across it in black marker. You bypass that room and finally arrive at your soon to be adopted child’s room. When you walk in you notice pictures of Florence Joyner and Kersee on the door to her closet, a radio sitting on the dresser with notecards in the corners of the mirror with small handwriting that says “Grammys,” with a large poster right above her bunkbed entitled “Drugs.”

 

Tune in to hear the rest of the story.

About Us:

Cage Free Voices (CFV) is a multi-service educational entertainment company that educates youth and young adults who struggle with self-image and identity. Among the many specialized programs, CFV offers music, radio, theatre, tutoring, journalism, poetry, workshops,conferences and seminars. Our programs are designed to improve rates of literacy for disengaged youth and those with special educationneeds. CFV offers curricula that not only focus on phonemic awareness, comprehension, fluency, and creative writing: we provide a platform forartistic expression.

Our Curricula:Cage Free Voices is a multi-service organization that offers interest driven programming, understanding students are more likely to engage intopics that are relevant and relational. While we keep student interest at the forefront, our programs are also Common Core and CTE aligned.Instruction is broken down into smaller, more manageable tasks and organized to limit distractions while still providing authentic experiences.

Outcomes:CFV offers reading services for students who may not have received all the tools necessary in primary school to succeed, the adult learner whowants to freshen up a bit, and the beginner who is eager to get started.  

Each semester, Cage Free Voices takes on (10) students per class (3) for reading or writing tutoring services and five (5) writers for book writingassistance. All reading and writing students meet with the instructor once a week for 120 minutes. Those needing book writing services meetonce a week for 60 minutes.

Cage Free Voices Tutoring is already producing results in the three months it has been up and running. One student is a third grader reading ona 6th grade level with a Lexile of 995L. Student B attends CFV Tutoring once a week and has been actively engaged in lessons. Since her start on October 23rd, she has seen a 90pt. Lexile gain within less than two months. In addition, Student C  has had the greatest increase in reading, more than doubling his starting score of 130L, October 2nd to 275L on December 12th, 2018.

 

Purchase curricula and games here: https://cagefreevoices.com/store 

Sign up for CFV Tutoring here: https://cagefreevoices.com/tutoring