ICARE

ICARE (Interfaith Coalition for Action, Reconciliation and Empowerment)

ICARE is a network of over 25 churches, congregations and community organizations across faiths working for social justice. ICARE seeks out problems in our community, researches solutions and then seeks to build power by turning out large number of people to hold public officials accountable to implement workable solutions.

Both lay and religious leaders from ACC are active in ICARE, supporting both the organization's goals and educating the membership about its work.

ICARE Jacksonville

ICARE Events

• March 19 ICARE Rally
  7:00 p.m. at St. Paul’s AME, 6910 New King’s Road will be an opportunity to preview the solutions we want to press city leaders for and test our turn-out for our Nehemiah Action Assembly. The Rally is open to everyone to bring friends, family, coworkers, and every concerned citizen who wants to see Jacksonville become a better place for all its people. See Nancy Ricker or Twila Rhodes for details.
• April 22 – Nehemiah Assembly for community justice mission
  Nehemiah Assembly for community justice mission will be held at 7:00 p.m. at the Potter's House - 5119 Normandy Boulevard Jacksonville Fl, 32205. Help us turn out over 3000 people from across our community to work for a better Jacksonville in areas of homeless, youth crime, education, and Jobs. This is an opportunity to follow in the faithful footsteps of Biblical prophets and our Lord himself who called us to put our faith into action.

Learn More About the Issue ICARE is Working On

Youth Crime

• 500 Jacksonville children were assigned to juvenile prison last year, and 140 more were sent to adult criminal court, which is 17% higher than the state average. Over 50% were charged with non-violent crimes. Duval county leads the state of Florida in the percentage of youth transferred into the adult criminal system.
• The first neighborhood accountability board has started because of ICARE. First-time youth offenders in the 08-09 and 18 zip codes will be diverted to this board and avoid prosecution.
• 2 schools, Englewood High school and Southside Middle school reported a 68% decrease in overall violations and a 35% decrease in suspensions due to the implementation of Restorative Justice practices.
• 18 additional schools have been trained to implement Restorative Justice in the fall of 2012

 

2013

• 40 schools using Restorative Justice
• Mandatory Civil Citations
• 4 new NABS
• 2.8 positions to coordinate NABS

 

Education

• There are at least 58,000 students who can not read at grade level
• As a community we must stand up to ensure that all children have a quality education
• The Superintendent has committed to implement Direct Instruction at Martin Luther King Elementary for two years and partner with NIFDI

 

2013

• Allow principles to choose Direct Instruction as a core curriculum in low-performing schools.

 

Jobs

• Northwest Jacksonville has an unemployment rate 100% higher that the rest of the city. Despite this rate, the city has largely ignored this region in their job growth plan.
• ICARE has ensured Mayor Brown's commitment to work with Jacksonville anchor industries to create jobs and capture wealth in this area.
• The Mayor's Office is committed to implementing a "best practice" for neighborhood revitalization and wealth creation through worker-owned small business cooperatives anchored in Northwest Jacksonville.
• The Mayor's Office has been communicating with the Democracy Collaborative out of the University of Maryland to develop a plan for implementation.

 

2013

• Commit $10,000 for the Democracy Collabrative to work in Jacksonville with local stakeholders.
• Join ICARE visiting the Cleveland Evergreen Initiave.
• Hold the roundtable in the fall.

 

 

The Background of Ted Howard and Democracy Collaborative:

Ted Howard (born 1950, Ohio) is a social entrepreneur and author. He is the founder and Executive Director of The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland and serves as the Minter Senior Fellow for Social Justice with the Cleveland Foundation.^[1][2] For more than 30 years, Howard has worked for non-profit organizations including UN agencies and The Hunger Project.

Since 2001, Howard has served as Chairman of the Board of Search for Common Ground, the world's largest conflict resolution NGO. He is chairman of the board of ocean advocacy group Blue Frontier Campaign, and a board member of LIFT, a national anti-poverty organization. In the early 1970s, he co-directed The People's Bicentennial Commission with Jeremy Rifkin, and in 1977 the pair co-founded the Foundation of Economic Trends.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlm0WFglgA8&feature=share&list=PL92835A4AB40B0BE8

The Cleveland Model
Howard is the architect of the green jobs and wealth building strategy launched in Cleveland, OH known as the Evergreen Cooperatives, based in part on the Mondragon Cooperatives in the Basque Region of Spain. Characterized in many press accounts as "The Cleveland Model," Evergreen is an effort to create green jobs in low-income neighborhoods using the purchasing power of the City's anchor institutions (hospitals, universities, etc.) to create local worker cooperative businesses. The program has received international attention from media outlets including The Economist, Al Jazeera, BusinessWeek, and Time. Testimony of the community...

2. http://youtu.be/axX4RY265rA