The Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization (M.A.G.I.C)

Bryan Echols, Executive Director of MAGIC


L-R Vanessa A. Muhammad, founder and Bryan Echols of MAGIC


Vanessa A. Muhammad

One of the many non-profits that I have encountered in the 20th Ward is the Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization. We hope to form a site for our students as well as an on-going partnership with them. Check out their mission:

Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization (M.A.G.I.C) is a non-profit community-based organization that seeks to develop sustainable processes and relationships that will address the environmental, social, and economic circumstances that face low-to-moderate income residents and around Chicago’ Woodlawn and Washington Park neighborhoods. The mission of MAGIC is to ensure that all residents have access to information and resources that create opportunities and power for them as a collective. As a result of our beliefs, MAGIC works to organize organizations, families and youth around consensus issues that have a high probability of receiving support from residents, stakeholders, and those outside of the community who can provide resources and social capital. It is through information, resources, human capital, social capital, and determination that our constituents will begin to prosper and impact the lives of others. Our work has primarily been with youth. However, we do not fall under the label of youth organizing. Youth are an integral part of every community. Therefore, our work with youth is not separate from community organizing. We work with youth, because youth do not remain youth. They grow into adults. If we are able to engage them in the civic process now, they will become adults who are advocates for themselves and their families. We already see this happening as MAGIC youth who have gone on to college have become active on campus in their first year.