Inaugural Fellowship Program Ends with ManUp to CleanUp Service Learning Project
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In February 2018, My Brother's Keeper Newark launched its first ever leadership development program for young men of color. The goal of this pilot program was to develop and test ways to teach young men of color about civic leadership. The program included three components: (1) Saturday Leadership Bootcamp Trainings; (2) ManUp Service Learning Projects; and (3) One-on-one coaching. The program was led by Dan DeNose, community leader, motivational speaker and founder of Leaders of the 21st Century, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide leadership and professional development for high school students to help them find ways to positively impact their community.
For their final service learning project, Fellows coordinated a ManUp to CleanUp Day at Independence Park in the East Ward on Saturday, July 14, in partnership with Essex County's Department of Parks and Recreation. Fellows cleaned up the park and invited area youth join a conversation about the role that men play in building up their community, while engaging in a pickup games of basketball.
To continue developing their civic leadership, some Fellows have joined the MBKNewark Youth Advisory Board where they will be charged with steering the organization's policy advocacy agenda and work closely with Mayor Baraka to expand opportunities for young men of color in Newark.
Fellows are getting ready for their closing program where they will share what they have learned with their family and friends on July 31st. Rev. Pablo Pizzaro, pastor of the Lighthouse Assembly of God and MBKNewark Community Advisory Board Member, will be the keynote speaker.
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MBKNewark and Greater Newark Health Care Coalition use Hip Hop to Teach Youth about Trauma and Resilience at Malcolm X Shabazz High School
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June marked the close of this past school year's Bulldog Brotherhood at Shabazz High School, a MBKNewark program in partnership with Greater Newark Health Care Coalition and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, focused on raising awareness about the impacts of trauma and how youth can tap into their resilience as a tool for healing.
The program ran from January - June 2018 and included 11 students who met weekly for discussions and activities integrating art therapy. For their capstone project, the Bulldog Brotherhood organized a presentation on trauma and resiliency to Shabazz High School staff and 7th grade students at Belmont Runyon Elementary School.
The program curriculum was designed and developed by Chantel Fletcher, a community health outreach specialist with Greater Newark Health Care Coalition and facilitated by Dr. JahJah Shakur, a local college instructor and youth development specialist. MBKNewark will use the learnings from this program to develop a training guide for engaging youth for peer-to-peer support in helping other youth better respond to traumatic experiences.
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MBKNewark Works to Keep Youth on the Career Pathway following the Opportunity Summit
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Since the
Summit
was held in February 2018, MBKNewark has continued to provide career planning support targeting 550 youth who participated get on and stay on the career pathway. This 90 days of career coaching was led by a team of trainers who made calls, sent text messages, met with young men in small groups and organized activities.
The youth selected to participate were chosen because they were not already connected to an existing system of support, like a school or job training program, to see if this level of support made a difference. Trainers had a 44.5% contact rate and a little under a third reported that they were either still employed or have since gained employment.
Part of the follow up included asking whether or not youth secured jobs at the Summit or were still looking. For those still searching, we secured their resumes and regularly shared job postings from various employers. One of the trainers, Essex County College Training Inc organized additional job fairs, resume writing workshops and interview preparation sessions. Others met with small groups of youth and helped them connect with mentors and social services.
About 10% of the contact information provided no longer worked, which signals the need for a hotline number youth can contact, given how rapidly their information changes. Transportation, availability of entry level opportunities, prior criminal records, and low wages were top issues raised by youth as they tried navigated the job market.
This support was made possible by a grant from the Obama Foundation's My Brother's Keeper Alliance as a part of the
Pathways to Success: Opportunity Summit for Young Men of Color
. MBKNewark plans to get feedback from participants on ways MBKNewark can work with local workforce training programs to better engage and communicate with young men of color throughout the city.
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Newark Arts Education Roundtable invites MBKNewark to partner on $84,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts
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Over the next two years, Newark Arts Education Roundtable (NAER) will partner with MBKNewark to develop trainings for arts educators and youth development programs on how to address trauma in school and community-based enrichment programs.
NAER is a strategic alliance of 80 arts education programs who collaborate to ensure children in the City of Newark have equitable access to high quality arts education in and out of school.
This grant project will work with Newark Public Schools students to reduce and eliminate the long-term impacts of trauma by helping schools access innovative arts programming that focuses on healing and resilience. NAER will develop tools to assess the efficacy of arts programming in addressing trauma and create a users guide of best practices that can be replicated in schools and other settings.
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Greater Newark Convention & Visitors Bureau asks MBKNewark to identify Young Men for Scholarship Award
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In May of 2018, MBKNewark was chosen as a recipient of the
Greater Newark Convention and Visitors Bureau Scholarship Award
. The scholarship supports Newark students with much needed support in the amount of $1000 towards books for the upcoming semester. In September MBK Newark will announce the scholarship recipients.
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MBKNewark at Mayor Baraka's Men’s Meeting Shedding Light on the Importance of Mentoring
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MBKNewark opened the May meeting discussing the importance of mentoring for young men of color. MBKNewark showcased local mentoring programs, inviting the men in attendance to get involved, including
The HUBB, Lift as We Climb, Newark Chess Club, Ali Muslim Boxing Gym, and the Newark Street Academy. Mayor Baraka reinforced the message and challenged those in attendance to make time to be a positive role model for a young man in Newark.
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MBKNewark Sponsors Newark Youth for
From the Fire Leadership Program
at Princeton University
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Through a partnership with Mayor Ras Baraka, MBKNewark sponsored two young men to participate in the
From the Fire: Leadership Academy for Young Men
, on the campus of Princeton University from July 22 - August 3, 2018. The program was created by At the Well Conferences and combines leadership development, mentoring and Rites of Passage to help youth be successful in school and life.
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The program chair is actor and director Delroy Lindo and will feature a keynote speech from actor, producer and humanitarian Danny Glover.
From the Fire
was developed on the success of an all girls leadership program called At the Well Leadership Academy for Young Women, now in its eighth year.
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Have you read MBKNewark's
Keeping the Promise
Action Plan?
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MBKNewark was started by Mayor Ras J. Baraka in 2015 with support from the Prudential Foundation, in response to then President Barack Obama's national call to action following the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin.
Since that time, MBK Newark has worked with partners on the ground to bring attention to challenges faced by boys and young men of color.
For the next three years, MBKNewark will collaborate with organizations to address persistent opportunity gaps through policy advocacy, scaling best practices and investing in innovative youth programs with a focus on:
Mentoring, Reducing Violence & Second Chances
and
Living Wage Jobs.
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My Brother's Keeper Newark | 973-634-9400 Ext 34 | info@mbknewark.org | mbknewark.org
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