My Brother's Keeper Model Community: Newark, New Jersey

young people are the greatest assets available to the survival of any community young men in Newark are really eager for an opportunity to debunk some of the negative stereotypes and recreate an image of themselves that is of strength of success of being capable and it's one of the reasons why these types of programs are so important because it provides them with the vehicles and arm ramps to do those things foreign [Music] ourselves on being a city that's gritty that's resilient because we have some deep roots and a rich history Newark is a industrial Town it has been a city of immigrants because of the port about 300 000 residents in the city and uh right now mostly black and Latino the odds being a black boy in this community are very difficult all of the trappings of what happens in the street life in this community pools young people in different directions we know that people that are most likely to grow up in households where people have become victims of violence perpetrate violence themselves watch out America Here Comes Newark you know when I became mayor President Obama had organized My Brother's Keeper I thought that was a brilliant and beautiful idea I wanted to be a part of it I jumped on it very early My Brother's Keeper is a part of the larger ecosystem of all the organizations that are working together collectively to reduce violence and crime in our city opportunity youth network is a ideal place for it because they deal with kids who've been disengaged from school and disengaged from work the partnership with MBK has helped the work of the opportunity youth Network to think about the advocacy and policy issues and using the MBK brand to kind of really focus that work towards not just programs but actually what are we learning at the program level that's allowing us to move systems and so what that looks like is finding opportunities in our community to position boys and young men of color to contribute to conversations that impact them whether that be in public safety educate Education Health and Wellness Workforce Development a wide variety of community stakeholders came together and said we need to get a handle on what's happening in our city one of the most important steps was really not responding in a in an emotional way but in a smart targeted way the data that was provided allowed us to be able to pinpoint that 80 percent of the crime is happening in 20 of the city it allowed the mayor to then Target his resources in a way that were very specific those steps included tapping Community residents as resources and solving the public safety challenge in this city it is no longer just the responsibility of the police in our city it is all of our responsibility to make sure that we are safe our theory of change as if we're able to service people on the front end specifically victims we prevent them from becoming perpetrators of crime in our program to reduce auto theft we presented the data to a group of young men here at MBK to help us understand why these crimes are concentrated in certain parts of the city we take data from the north public safety collaborative and we analyze auto theft and violence that goes on in our community with that data we try to come up with Solutions so we can help solve all the things that go on with crime in our community because of the work of this public safety ecosystem we've seen a 55 percent reduction in homicides and a 35 reduction in shooting victims when I think about where we are today I know that we have not reached the promised land we are not where we want to be but we are so far from where we used to be and so this recognition from the Obama Foundation makes me say we have something to celebrate but we also have some things to still be hungry for to desire and to Tunnel at My Hope for myself and other young men like me in the city is just to understand that they matter just know that somebody's going to hear that story and like your voice matter you're a factor you mean something to somebody foreign [Music]

Channel: Obama Foundation

Views: 2,556

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Id: CY3Fe6IZv5M

Length: 4min 38sec (278 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2023