Al-Bawi Wants Equal Resources for All

Peace and blessings,

I ran for one purpose: I want for my neighbor what I want for myself. The issues of poverty, substance abuse, violence, and mental health struggles, as well as the stigma around them, have reached epidemic proportions.

The poverty rate for African Americans in Knoxville is 42%. That number has actually increased over the last fifteen years. The policies currently in place have proven ineffective in addressing the needs of our most vulnerable and marginalized communities: the poor, the working class, and communities of color. We have an opportunity to address our needs in this election. We can elect 3 leaders on our city council this election and all it takes is one vote!

The first part of my platform is to address all of those issues by making sure every child and family in our city has access to community schools and free breakfast and lunch programs during the summer. These programs offer families free/reduced cost childcare. It allows them to work a few extra hours. It reduces our anxiety by giving our children the community and emotional support that we desperately need. This will allow the family to start saving money and will give them the boost they need to move from working class to middle class. This will also educate our children about many things such as the importance of being involved in the community which in turn will see out voter turnout rates increase over the next ten to twenty years as those children grow into intelligent informed and responsible citizens.

This is just one piece of my platform to end the generational cycles of poverty, substance abuse, violence, and mental health struggles as well as the stigma around them.
Peace and blessings

Vote Charles Al-Bawi

City Council Candidate, Dist. 5

November 5, 2019