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Englewood Group to Represent Chicago at 2014 UN Conference

By Wendell Hutson | July 30, 2014 5:30am
 Shango Johnson and Tameka Lawson work for the nonprofit I Grow Chicago and will represent Chicago as delagates at the 2014 United Nations World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in New York.
Shango Johnson and Tameka Lawson work for the nonprofit I Grow Chicago and will represent Chicago as delagates at the 2014 United Nations World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in New York.
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DNAinfo/Wendell Hutson

ENGLEWOOD — When the first ever United Nations World Conference on Indigenous Peoples takes place this year, two members of an Englewood organization will be there to represent Chicago.

Tameka Lawson, executive director of I Grow Chicago, and Shango Johnson, the nonprofit's youth male coordinator, will serve as delegates at the "high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly" running from Sept. 22-23 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, said Alyssa Macy, a spokeswoman for the conference.

While Macy expects between 200 and 300 delegates to attend the conference, she did not know how many others would come from Chicago besides Lawson and Johnson.

Wendell Hutson explains what the UN conference is all about and why these two were chosen:

 This vacant building in the 6400 block of South Honore Street in Englewood will become the new program office for the nonprofit I Grow Chicago.
This vacant building in the 6400 block of South Honore Street in Englewood will become the new program office for the nonprofit I Grow Chicago.
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DNAinfo/Wendell Hutson

A total of 28 delegates will attend from the North American region. In all, seven regions, which includes Russia, Africa and Latin America, make up the world conference.

"There will be heads of state from around the world at this meeting," Macy said. "I hear Secretary of State John Kerry is planning to attend, but we have not received any confirmation on that."

Officials from the U.S. State Department did not return calls seeking comment.

Johnson, a 42-year-old Englewood resident, said his selection to serve as a volunteer delegate is humbling.

"This is a world stage I am about to step on and that is not something done every day," Johnson said. "I used to be a gang member running the streets of Englewood, but now I am mentoring to males to get them off the street."

The organization is currently running a summer program in the 6400 block of South Honore Street, where it runs an urban garden and is rehabbing a vacant home into its new program office. The street is blocked off to traffic in the mornings and free yoga lessons are among the activities available.

"Some Mondays I get five or six young guys come to our yoga exercise in order to suppress anger they built up over the weekend," Johnson said. "That is why so many black males are shooting people. They are angry and do not know how to deal with their anger other than inflict harm on others."

One thing Lawson said she hopes to learn from the conference is better ways to create peaceful neighborhoods.

""I am eager to know how delegates across the globe are taking back their communities in order to bring about peace. Violence is not just an Englewood situation but a world situation," Lawson said.

As a delegate, Lawson said her job would be to cultivate peace.

"We understand that peaceful activities alone won’t heal a community. People need to work together. Resources, jobs and education are needed," said Lawson.

According to Susan Stanton, executive director of the Illinois council of the Grandmothers Circle the Earth Foundation, the pair was chosen as delegates in part because of their "tireless efforts to improve Englewood through youth and adult programs."

The foundation worked with the International Pubic Policy Institute, which is sponsoring the delegates, in choosing Lawson and Johnson.

"If we do not send anyone from Englewood then we would not be representing indigenous people accurately," said Stanton. "Englewood is everyone's neighborhood."

Macy, who resides in Oregon but previously lived in Rogers Park, described ''indigenous peoples'' as people defined in international or national legislation as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, and their cultural or historical distinctiveness from other populations that are often politically dominant.

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