Lucy Gellman Photo
The first time Shafiq Abdussabur heard about New Haven Scholarship Fund (NHSF), he was finishing his grocery shopping at Edge Of The Woods, and found himself listening intently to NHSF board member Bill Dyson, wanting to know everything he could. That started with the Fund’s history, and ended with a list of questions, all tumbling around his brain long after that first encounter.
Like: How is it different from the New Haven Promise Scholarship?
Who is eligible?
How much money is given out per year?
Is there a GPA rating, or do test scores matter?
His episode of WNHH’s “Urban Talk Radio” addresses questions these head-on, taking a closer look at New Haven’s educational gap as a higher rate of the Elm City’s youth graduate and are accepted to college, but a lower rate actually finish college.
That started with Dyson’s explaination of his own history with the New Haven school system and its students.
“You work with kids; you try to motivate them, you try to understand what’s moving them. There was a talk [in 1971] as to what they were going to do in relation to the streets. They really struggled with it. This was the beginning of the dilemma that we’ve had for the last 20, 30 years. Around the time when the Panthers were in town, when poverty was rampant … when you had people trying to find their way. People were struggling with that. I did as much as I could. And what I could do was just put myself in in 150 percent.”
To listen to the full episode, click on the audio above or find it in iTunes or any podcatcher under “WNHH Comunity Radio.”