WILL-AM, WILL-TV Examine Issues Facing Rural Youth
In conjunction with WILL-TV’s airing of the PBS documentary series Country Boys (8 pm Mon-Wed, Jan. 9-11), WILL-TV and WILL-AM 580 News, along with their community partner, Prairie Center Health Systems, are working with community leaders and youth from Hoopeston to look at problems of youth living in rural areas.
Country Boys, a David Sutherland film, bears witness to the efforts of two teenage boys to overcome the poverty and family dysfunction of their childhood in rural America. WILL-AM 580 News examines the challenges faced by teens in Hoopeston with a series of reports by news director Tom Rogers at 7:20 a.m. Monday-Tuesday, Jan. 9 and 10. In the first report, Rogers talks to teens in Hoopeston about their lives and concerns. In Tuesday’s report, he finds out what Hoopeston is doing to address the needs of teens.
WILL outreach coordinator Kimberlie Kranich said that WILL wants to use the documentary series as a way to initiate dialogue and engage the community around common concerns. “We hope to inspire a response that can create new results,” she said. While the boys in the film live in Appalachia, the issues raised are universal to adolescents living in remote areas, she said. In discussions with both young people and community leaders in Hoopeston, substance abuse was raised as an issue of particular concern.
According to Betty Seidel of Prairie Center Health Systems, a not-for- profit substance abuse prevention, education and treatment agency, formal mentoring programs in Hoopeston have struggled over the last several years to find sufficient numbers of adults to match up with boys whose families have requested adult mentors. Pairing caring adults with school children in mentoring programs can be the difference between a student who does well in school and one who drops out, she said.
WILL is considering sponsoring a series of three town hall meetings, one with youth, one with adults, and a third with adults and youth in the spring.
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