Jack Zipes Quotes

I want to create my own charity, getting inner-city kids to read more. And I want to produce my own films.

Back when people couldn't read, other people would take newspapers and turn them into theater so that people would know what was going on in the world. That is a powerful thing.

As an actor I worked for seven years with a community theater company based in London. We used improvisation techniques to take stories to young people who wouldn't normally have access to them - in prisons, hospitals, young offender's units, youth clubs and housing estates.

I was very fortunate that a teacher saw that I read a lot and got bored very easily and had a lot of energy, so she said, 'You've got to go to this youth theater.' I joined Manchester Youth Theatre when I was really young, and I just loved putting on and being involved in plays and telling stories.

Since the age of four, I've been exploring what I can do with the written word: everything from championing literacy and youth voice to raising awareness about world hunger.

Well, immediately we announced yesterday or the day before we're building, with my foundation, a youth tennis and learning center in Austin. I'd like to be hands on with that and not see it periodically.

I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room.

Doing and making positive programming for young people is so important to me, and I will keep doing it.

I definitely know I'm going to be working a lot more with my foundation when it comes to developing the kids in Jamaica.

Reading has helped motivate me to become a spokesperson for programs like the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. It has motivated me to become more involved in my community and to keep learning new things.

Giants of Africa holds such a special place in my heart. It's not just another non-profit organization - this is personal. What started as a dream to give back to the country that raised me has since blossomed into an intercontinental mission to uplift youth across the diaspora, and shed light on the greatest part of Africa: its people.

And what is needed to prevent them from joining gangs was ample recreation for boys as well as girls, jobs and internships for training and money, and assistance to allow their families to live in decent homes.

Hoping to instill my love of learning in other children, I taught my first class at a local elementary school the year my first book, 'Flying Fingers,' debuted; since then, I have spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world.

The Indian youth needs to be empowered, and it can be done through good education and vocational training.

I've also been working with the Challengers Club in the inner city of Los Angeles for 15 years now, I guess, and it's essentially an inner-city recreation club for boys and girls.

Building capacities for the young generation is going to make a better generation and a better future tomorrow for Africa.

I grew up in the Boys & Girls Club. That's where I really started playing all sports, and that's why I'm a big advocate for the work they do.

I can tell you I'm not exactly sure why I teach. I think a lot of it is just it's the sense of community. A real desire to be involved both with people older than myself and people younger.

One of the reasons that I take such joy in being a trustee of the New York Public Library is the love of reading that I found as a child in the Saturday morning library events for preschoolers and first and second graders as I was growing up in Augusta, GA.

I work with the Carl Lewis Foundation focusing on youth from high school down.

Something happened when I was in elementary school. A Disney artist named Bruce McIntyre retired, and he had done drawings for 'Pinocchio' and 'Snow White' that was just classic stuff. He moved to the town I grew up in, Carlsbad, and he became a part-time art teacher at our elementary school.

Research shows that children do better in school and are less likely to drop out when fathers are involved. Engaged parents can strengthen communities, mentor and tutor students, and demonstrate through their actions how much they value their children's education.

At this point in my life - age 24 - I have chosen a fairly strange path that not many are walking. I am a professional spoken word poet who tours the world performing and teaching. I run an organization called Project VOICE dedicated to using this art form as an education and empowerment tool in schools and communities of all kinds.

At Walmart, we recognize the need to support the development of our nation's youth.

Involvement in the arts engages kids in their community, improves self-esteem, reclaims at-risk youth, and builds the creative skills that are required of a 21st century workforce.