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 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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More on
Country Boys
8 pm Mon-Wed, Jan 9-11
 AM
580 News looks at the challenges of adolescence in one
Illinois community...
 Part
1
Part
2 |
