Page 4-Sunday, October 28, 1979-The Michigan Daily The Michigan Daily-Sunday, 0 Taking Detroit's underprivileged from st reets to payche IT'S NOT EASY to leave the street ,corner, break a dependence on government financial support, and accept the daily responsibilities which accompany a paycheck. To pad the thorny, path to permanent employment, the Greater Opportunities Industrialization Center of Metropolitan Detroit provides a link between jobs and the people who need them. The organization, familiar to many as GOIC, takes the unemployed and the underemployed and arms them with the personal, realistic training needed to compete in the working world. Although the staff at GOIC sees close to 1,200 people a year, not many in-the Detroit metropolitan area even know the organization exists. GOIC, which receives 90 per cent of its $5.5 million budget through the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) and 10 per cent through private organizations, does not spend money on advertising campaigns or recruiting efforts. GOIC's low profile is derived from its unique philosophy. "If you're sincere about folk, you don't have to toot your horn," says Randall Ephriam, director of GOIC's finance department, and himself a graduate of the training program. Ephriam's story illustrates the GOIC staff's sincerity about its clients. Randall Ephriam worked at the Ford Rouge plant for six years. He didn't like working in a factory. "The majority of the people there work for 30 or 40 years and retire, and then you'd hear they'd died. I couldn't see working all my life to die when I retired." He had technical experience in electronics from Cass Tech High School, "but I didn't know what 1 wanted to do. I knew it had to be different from the streets. I was dealing weed, running an after-hours joint, and gambling. Fortunately, I never went to a penitentiary. I was lucky not to be there when the chips were down." Despite strong aspirations to be. an accountant, Randall had never considered going to college. Like Ephriam, John Rouse knew only the Detroit street life. He dropped out of high school thinking, "Forget everything. I don't need no high school diploma. I'm gonna do what I want." His mother died when he was quite young, and her death robbed John's life of stability. "She kept us in school and told us that's what we need to get over in life, and to respect other people," he recalls. With his mother gone and no compulsion to attend school, John tur- ned to stealing and drugs. Eventually he gained welding skills from the Judy Rakowsky is the Daily city editor. By Judy Rakowsky Chrysler Institute, which he attended for only tw weeks. He reached more dead ends and resorted t Job Corps for further trade preparation. John live at the facility with other Job Corps trainees "That's where I got into the' gang banging Everybody wanted to be gangsters and get a bi head," John remembers. The long-term resident "looked at it like a jail." He left after two-and-a-ha weeks, dissatisfied with "a lot of rude people wh were just doing their job." Such dismal memories seem as distant a childhood to these men now. Once they made it t GOIC, their views of themselves and their live changed drastically. "GOIC puts you in that mood of wanting to d something to better your life," John says, now tha he has passed the Graduate Equivalency Diplom test with GOIC's help. He pursued another GOI program and has acquired clerical skills. Randall Ephriam sharpened his electronics skill and came to work for.GOIC as a custodian. His a counting aspirations were revived when he move in as the purchaser's aide, and he began *thinkin seriously about going to college. At the same tim he became involved in creating GOIC's trainee council. Randall wrote the guidelines for this body which has a voice and a vote on the organization' Board of Directors. The trainees council also ha the power to bring GOIC to its knees, according t Randall. "Their (trainees') power is so great that' they walked out, we might not have any jobs. Ou purpose is to serve them." Now Randall is a developer in the Finance Depar tment and he sits on the board of the alumn association. He's a senior at Shaw College i Detroit, majoring in accounting. GOIC is not just a tutoring or vocational center.]V employs a self-help concept for people who ar dependent on -government stipends to survive. N GOIC clients subsist on incomes above $3,000. Th idea is to wean individuals off the welfare rolls an onto the payrolls. Members of the GOIC staf recognize the ego-crippling impact of poverty an dependence, so they work to restore their clients self-esteem and independence. Concern for the in dividual - "Everybody is somebody" - is a prin cipal tenet of the organization. GOIC Employment Development Specialis o0 o d S. g. g is lf 10 s o s 10 at C Is d g e, s , s s t0 if 1r r- i n Clarence Williams says encouraging independence sometimes means "I have to get mean with social workers." Government hand-outs help the needy only temporarily, Williams explains, but "if you train them for a job, that's a real gift. If you give people jobs,they don't need social services." The single mandatory prerequisite for joining the GOIC staff is some -experience with or exposure to poverty. GOIC Executive Director Jim Brewer says six months later with their chest or breast sticking out, their head high and they go out and try to get a job. They're scared, and if they get it, they come back and say 'Thank you'." Randall Ephraim explains that GOIC instructors are willing to take extra time to help people. "Like I took time out of my lunch hours to help a young lady who failed part of her GED. She took it again and passed with flying colors. 'You feel proud of helping that per- son to they 're get where at. you help body, it's When some- better than any dollar or cent you could get.' -GOIC Director Jim Brewer familiarity with poverty increases staff members' "I've been offered other jobs, but I've refused [t sensitivity to those they serve. Those who counsel or them. It takes some sort of dedication to stay on e teach also need state accreditation. here, when you could be making twice as much o GOIC staff members exude a commitment to elsewhere," Randall adds. e their jobs which is seldom encountered:"There's a Trainees must also make a commitment when d contagious- enthusiasm about the organization," they enroll in any GOIC program. When John Rouse ff comments Ed Hodges, the New Detroit re'presen- first came to GOIC he sat down with a counselor to d tative on the GOIC Technical and Industrial Ad- discuss his goals and his ability to meet them. Then ' visory Board, which is composed of business and he took a placement test and agreed to a contract - community leaders who work with the center. binding him to regular attendance and a concerted n Hodges attributes much of the staff's dedication effort to better himself. "It seems like they (GOIC to Brewer's leadership. "It's a very dedicated staff, staff members) care. They let you know the things t largely because of the kind of executive director you need in life," says John. Jim Brewer is," he explains. Hodges' catch phrase Throughout the four-month clerical training for Brewer is "concerned,{" which he defines as program (other programs last six months), John someone who is "highly sensitive to the needs of the talked with his counselor twice a month and met individual and the personnel needs of employers." with a group to discuss mutual progress and Hodges also serves as Michigan Bell's personnel problems. Once a week, he attended awareness vice-president and has-known Brewer since the sessions, during which the reailities of day-to-day GOIC director came to Detroit in 1972. Brewer is work are examined. Dismal factory surroundings "down-to-earth, no nonsense, very open, willing to and testy employers or supervisors are only two listen, and accepts advice and implements it," aspects of work life covered in unadorned detail Hodges adds. during the sessions. GOIC counselors try to avoid Janis Rhodes recently joined the GOIC staff. She creating false expectations for trainees. It is not was -not assigned a formal position, but began going to be easy to adhere to daily routines or un- devising workshops and proposals for programs to pleasant working conditions, they tell the trainees. deal with displaced homemakers. "I've got a lot of In classes and awareness sessions, basic social new good ideas, I just hope they go!" she says. skills ranging from interviewing techniques and Jeff McLeod is a University graduate who works assertiveness training to a pleasant smile and a with applicants in orientation and goal iden- firm handshake are stressed. John's com- tification training. He has been with GOIC since munications teacher "changed me in expressing Nov. 1978 and senses dedication among his fellow my views and talking that slang talk." John says his staff members. "People seem to be together and teacher explained that people could not understand very committed, so much that when you're new, you what he was saying when he talked "that street get scared a bit by all the talk about commitments." life." But John obviously altered his style of speech THE COMMITMENT of GOIC's staff is il- on his own volition. "I changed because it was the lustrated by. the fact that many of them right way," he says. have been offered jobs elsewhere - but they stay at GOIC for the non-material re- wards of their jobssPhotos by Maureen O'Malley Explains Brewer, "When a person comes back and says 'Thank you,' that has to do something for a person. You feel proud of-helping that person to get John's transformation was not magical or where they're at. When you help somebody, it's bet- automatic. But his friends from the street corner ter than any dollar or cent you could get." Brewer recognized the difference. "They'd see me going to often has witnessed the tremendous change GOIC school every day - I had a brief case - and they trainees experience by the time they leave for jobs. thought I felt I was better than them." John tried to "You see a person come in and no matter how give them some advice: "Being out there in the bowed and disenfranchised'they look, you sefhie-'thdets ain't getting you nowhere." 7. 1 r s 1 t l l 1 t John's old friends did not rush to GOIC, but the support of his new acquaintances, from classes helped him pursue his redirection without feeling of loss. "Everybody got along with everybody (at GOIC) and looked out for everybody. They stick together," he recalls. Carl Porter was in clerical training with John and continues to work in GOIC's technical services department. He plans to enroll at Detroit Business College in January, but that won't keep him from working at GOIC. "This is the best place I know of for working and going to school (at night) because they don't hold you back," he says. Carl also welcomes GOIC attempts to acclimate trainees to the business world. In fact, one of the reasons he chose clerical training is that he was required to wear a suit to class, "and that's nice." He responded to the flashing lights on the an- tiquated GOIC switchboard, and gestured to his powder blue V-neck sweater and beige slacks. "You see me here today, if I had on a suit, you might get a different impression." THEN "AN OLD, white, gray-haired lady," as Brewer describes her, came in to inter- view John. She did not offer the ready smile characteristic of GOIC staff mem- bers and was not sympathetic to his obvious anxieties. Some students break down and cry when they are criticized and treated harshly in these situations. Teachers immediately provide more positive reinforcement, knowing such negative responses mean more training is needed. Unlike manytrainees, John says he didn't expect GOIC to get him a job upon completion of the program. He has not found a job yet, after com- pleting basic clerical training, but he knows how to get oi.- GOIC job developers assist Williams in locating jobs and placing trainees in them. Placement does not mean GOIC secures em- ployment for its graduates. Rather, it discovers where jobs are and after a trainee lands one, his or her counselor and a job developer help the trainee keep it. "We tell employers, 'don't terminate them, call us if there are any problems'," Brewer says. If an employer informs GOIC of difficulties, a counselor or teacher is sent to the job site immediately to talk with the GOIC graduate and work out the problem. Once a graduate is placed, GOIC checks on him or her after one month, three months, six months and again after about four years, to make sure the GOIC alumnus is still employed. GOIC negotiates contracts and delineates con- tract goals before sponsors provide funds. The cen- ter usually exceeds its placement goals, according to Glenda Greggs, who compiles GOIC's statistics. She says, considering the challenges GOIC faces, if 50 per cent of the total enrollment is placed, "That's excellent." GOIC's placement rate hovers around 90 per cent, according to Greggs and William Walker, head of program management for Detroit CETA. The Detroit GOIC is one of 150 similar centers across the country, the products of an idea nurtured by Rev. Leon Sullivan and based on his observations of desperate poverty in Philadelphia. A Baptist preacher, Sullivan is known best as the General Motors board member who devised the Sullivan Principles - the guidelines for equitable em- ployment practices by firms operating in the apar- theid system of South Africa. Sullivan first applied the OIC idea in Philadelphia in 1964, where Brewer joined the organization a year later. Sullivan envisioned bridging the chasm between the labor market and workers by fur- nishing the academic and. vocational skills disad- vantaged individuals need to become competitive in the job market. The premise entails helping the un- derprivileged to catch up in areas such as articulate expression and social habits that people of the mid- dle and upper classes usually already possess. "Integration without preparation leads to frustration," is one of many oft-repeated Sullivan quotes. Sullivan devised a practical formula for orienting disadvantaged individuals to the world of work. The formula has been taken off the blackboards at OIC personnel workshops and used to train 400,000 See GOIC. Page 8 John Rouse (left) and Gregg Tartt who, with GOIC's help, have earned high school Graduate Equiva- lency diplomas and have acquired trade skills that improve their job opportunities.