Hi, I'm Elise Hugh. You're listening to TED Talks Daily. Today, a talk from Kwami Awusu Kessi. He works with children as CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone. His organization has helped change thousands of young lives in Harlem by trying to change entire neighborhoods. In his TED 2020 talk, Kwameh shares what he's learned,

what works to solve economic and public health problems in poor communities,

and how these solutions could work for the entire country.

It is such a blessing to work at the Harlem Children's Zone,

an African-American-led organization that has pioneered the field

of comprehensive place-based services

from cradle to career.

And that word comprehensive is so key to what we do.

You know, most interventions focus on one piece

of a complicated giant puzzle.

But that's not enough to solve a puzzle. You don't solve education

without understanding the home context or the home environment of our young scholar, or the broader

context of health, nutrition, or criminal justice. The unit of change for us is not the individual

child. It's the entire neighborhood. You have to do multiple things at the same time.

And we have 20 years of data to prove that this works.

We've had 7,000 graduates of our baby college.

We've eliminated the black-white achievement gap in our schools.

We've reduced obesity rates in our health programs and have close to a thousand

students enrolled in college. We weave together a net of services so tightly so that no one

will fall through the cracks. And we've inspired global practitioners. We've had over 500 plus

communities across the U.S. and 70 plus countries come and visit us to learn our model.

You see, the problems of the globe and the problems of the world are not neatly siloed into buckets.

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