This week on "Chicago Stories" podcast, Mayor Emanuel interviews Chatham resident and My Block, My Hood, My City founder Jahmal Cole. Hear about Jahmal’s mission of helping Chicago’s youth discover their potential by exposing them to new experiences and opportunities.

Jahmal’s journey began when he was a volunteer at Cook County prison, hearing inmates talk about “my block” and “my hood,” but never “my city.”

As he said, “they had never been downtown, never been to the lake, never been in an elevator, never called a taxi. Their whole worldview was shaped by the infrastructure of North Lawndale.” He set out to change that by taking them all over Chicago and even across the country.

Jahmal may have started My Block, My Hood, My City a few years ago, but its roots go back to his own childhood “growing up” on the Greyhound bus between Chicago and Texas. As he rode through cities and farms, meeting people outside of his Chicago neighborhood, he became exposed to a world neither he nor his friends knew.

Today, Jahmal’s moving that experience forward by working with 120 Chicago teenagers every month, exposing them to their own promise, and sharing his message around the world.

Listen to the full interview on Mayor Emanuel's "Chicago Stories" podcast and subscribe at http://www.bit.ly/ChiStories.

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