Last week I talked about social entrepreneurship as sustainable change that is being enacted. To me, this is the corner stone of what I am doing here in Detroit. In creating Small Batch Detroit, I am helping to make Detroit Food Academy even more sustainable. The goal of creating Small Batch Detroit is to provide a sustainable funding source for Detroit Food Academy so it does not have to rely solely on donations and grants, raise awareness for Detroit Food Academy and offer gainful employment for graduates of the academy. To me, this project incorporates solutions for many of the growing problems not only in Detroit, but around the country. Through creating a program based on food, high schoolers are taught about the choices they make every day and ways for them to lead healthier more fulfilling lives. Beyond living a healthier life, the young adults are learning how to create their own business plans and resumes so that they can take control of their own life. In teaching them these skills, the kids are learning how to empower themselves. This empowerment not only helps the high schoolers learn to make nutritious choices, and learn skills that will help them through life, but in teaching the kids how to empower themselves it, in my opinion, is also teaching them the value of education and the need for them to at least finish their high school careers, and in some cases go on to college.
In my personal opinion, one of the most important things to invest in, invest time, money, effort, and everything in between, is in education. Without education the cycles of poverty cannot be broken because the causes are still there. With education, people are empowered to think for themselves and find their own ways out of the troubles they are going through. This in turn allows them to pass the knowledge to their kids and thus break out of the constant cycles of poverty that people find themselves trapped in. When looking at Detroit as whole, I believe that this lack of investment in education was a large factor of the downfall of the auto industry. Many auto manufacturers didn’t put the proper investment into technology and allowed East Asian companies to push ahead. With education, and investment in education, it allows entire societies to stay on the cutting edge of technology. While there were educated individuals in and around Detroit, the mentality, in my opinion, was too focused on return-on-investment rather than the future. Detroit Food Academy isn’t looking at return-on-investment, it is looking at building the pathways to create a better future, and is doing so by investing itself in education and empowering individuals. It is this mentality, one of sustainability and looking into the future, that is the most important thing my project helps to bring to Detroit Food Academy, and to Detroit as a whole.
In my personal opinion, one of the most important things to invest in, invest time, money, effort, and everything in between, is in education. Without education the cycles of poverty cannot be broken because the causes are still there. With education, people are empowered to think for themselves and find their own ways out of the troubles they are going through. This in turn allows them to pass the knowledge to their kids and thus break out of the constant cycles of poverty that people find themselves trapped in. When looking at Detroit as whole, I believe that this lack of investment in education was a large factor of the downfall of the auto industry. Many auto manufacturers didn’t put the proper investment into technology and allowed East Asian companies to push ahead. With education, and investment in education, it allows entire societies to stay on the cutting edge of technology. While there were educated individuals in and around Detroit, the mentality, in my opinion, was too focused on return-on-investment rather than the future. Detroit Food Academy isn’t looking at return-on-investment, it is looking at building the pathways to create a better future, and is doing so by investing itself in education and empowering individuals. It is this mentality, one of sustainability and looking into the future, that is the most important thing my project helps to bring to Detroit Food Academy, and to Detroit as a whole.
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