Educational Visions Organization
About Educational Visions
Educational Visions Organization provides positive educational and social experiences, mentoring and tutoring to assist students and parents from low socioeconomic communities.
We are open to serving the entire Gulf Coast, but we have a particular focus on the area of West Gulfport.
Guiding Principles
Addressing the poverty cycle
Children should not be blamed for being born into a life of poverty or the situational traps that come with that life. Too often families of poverty must focus so much attention on securing immediate basic needs that they cannot afford to focus on dreams of a future career or the steps needed to reach that career. This leads to a life of surviving in poverty rather than escaping poverty. The experiences we create are designed to expose children and families to careers, colleges and information can help them visualize and plan for a potential future that breaks the poverty cycle.
Adddressing school dropouts
Children of poverty are more likely to drop out of school. This increases the cycle of poverty in that dropouts are less likely to secure a high wage income, more likely to use some form of public assistance, and are more likely to enter the penal system. These students are physically dropping out in high school, but they are often mentally dropping out in middle school. The experiences we offer are targeted on connecting student’s interests and talents to a college major, or a career and technical education field that can help to keep them focused academically until they reach their educational goals.
addressing influence of parents’ education
Parents hold an immense influence on a child’s immediate and long term educational outcomes. One major area of influence is the parents’ educational expectations of the child. This influence is produced by way of parental prioritization of education, encouragement and discipline of the child, and communication with teachers. Parental expectations are important, however, children are influenced more by what they observe than what they are told. Parents create greater influence on children by the education level that they attain and by the educational activities they are seen doing. Students are more likely to be successful in the short and long term when they observe their parents involved in activities such as using their educational background for work purposes, reading in their free time, or pursuing an educational goal. When applicable we aim to use a two pronged approach of assisting parents and students with educational goals as a powerful tool in breaking the poverty cycle.
addressing influence of community
When a student is immersed in a community of low educational and financial success during their formative years, they are more likely to become a part of that cycle of low educational and financial success. When you witness high rates of academic failure and dropout, then those outcomes become an acceptable option for you. One way we seek to counter this trend is to expose students to the success stories from their community. Consistent exposure to successful individuals via dialogue, projects and mentoring will make success a more viable option. This includes exposure to successful high school and college students, recent college graduates, and seasoned professionals from a variety of careers and fields that are from the same community.
It is also important to expose students to the historical successes of their communities. This can be done via research projects that focus on the local individuals, businesses, churches and united communities that thrived through some of our nation’s darkest years.
PAST Projects
Educators travel to ethIopia
We worked to assist 3 Mississippi educators to travel to Ethiopia to study the life of Col. John C. Robinson. We learned so much about the amazing people and culture of Ethiopia. The information gathered is still being shared with the community and in classrooms today.
Day of Code
In June of 2019 we hosted an Hour of Code. We gave students and their families the chance to use block coding to create dance videos via, code.org. Attending families received refreshments, and students were given certificates of completion at the end of the event. This event was sponsored by the Harrison County Board of Supervisors.
Jackson State Univeristy high School Day
We took over 30 high school and middle school students to the Jackson State University High School Day. The students took part in guided tours of the campus, a strolling exhibition by the Divine Nine campus fraternities and sororities, performances by the JSU band and dance team, and a JSU football game.
john c. robinson mississippi aviation heritage museum summer camp
Educational Visions Organization provides curriculum assistance, organizational support, student scholarships and teacher recruitment for the aviation museum located in Gulfport, MS.
Students in the six day camps are exposed to the principals of flight and other STEM activities, a variety of aviation related careers, and the history of many MS. aviators.
Special thanks to our supporters
We have been blessed to receive great support from our local community and we look forward to more partnerships as we continue to serve.
