My Brother's Keeper Model Community: Omaha, Nebraska

[Music] growing up in Norfolk and seeing my family members go in and out in jail that encouraged me to want to be something different want to do something different having great mentors men that look like myself showing me the way really just changed the whole young man's life my name is Willie Barney CEO and founder of empowerment Network we facilitate My Brother's Keeper here in Omaha Omaha has grown pretty tremendously over the last 10 years and as we got to begin to do work here in the city with our boys and young men of color we saw some of the barriers the graduation rate at the time that we started was 50 for our young men we were looking at all-time highs and gun violence especially youth violence and what we looked to do was to go directly to those young men and learn from them what would it take for them to be successful in the city of Omaha welcome to the Omaha 360 weekly collaborative partner meeting we host meetings consistently with leaders in a community Youth and families the police department people had been involved in gang intervention sitting at the same table and talking about what are the issues then also what are some of the solutions what we found over the years is those most impacted by violence they have the ideas the strategies because they're closest to it the Omaha that I know you couldn't get this many people in the same room together now that we have that most of my Partnerships in the last three years have come from in this room the things that I hear at these meetings the people that I'm able to meet I never thought I would have met them had I not been in this room good afternoon I'm the captain of the Northwest Precinct I only have one incident and one follow-up we look at the prior seven days what are the activities that have occurred specifically related to gun violence what are the things that we can respond to what's coming up the next seven days that we can make sure that we get in front of to make sure that we're all aligned it's a great forum for connection to our law enforcement so that there can be really open and honest dialogue that helps the community to really understand their role and responsibility in preventing violence but then also kind of helps our law enforcement to understand the heart of the community with their response to violence so our law enforcement agencies are seeing people and not just problems we have learned from our young men and looking to stay out of the gang life they wanted employment they wanted to be productive and see what's possible in their own City so MBK connects young men with career exploration internships entrepreneurship helps them understand how important education is by providing an opportunity for them to actually experience it exposure to employment opportunities that I probably normally wouldn't have had was huge I started getting my grades up I learned leadership I started impacting other people's life too there has been a measurable impact the graduation rate has increased from 50 percent up to a high of 81 percent for African-American young men we had a 21 unemployment rate we were able to get that down to seven percent when it comes to non-fatal gun assaults we've seen a reduction from a high of 243 down to a low of 90 at one point homicides were reduced from 43 to 30. when we started this process the clearance rate as far as homicides that did occur being solved was at the rate of 32 percent over the years working more collectively as a community with the police department it hit as high as 90 percent it's one of the highest in the nation especially for a city of this size to see the impact of violence just reduce it gives our youth a different outlook on life this doesn't have to be your fate you don't have to pick up a gun you don't have to retaliate let's get you more involved in mentoring opportunities in service learning let us show you how you can make a change this stuff is all coming full circle and we all have a different understanding now of what it's going to take that's why I'm more confident than I've ever been that we are going to solve this for me living in a safe community means having kids be able to just go outside and enjoy being children without having to worry about violence or gun threats or gangs I feel like we need safer communities everywhere not just in Omaha cities across the country have been calling and wanting to know more about Omaha 360 and our partnership with MBK so we've been able to now do work in those other cities and I think this partnership with MBK will just accelerate that it's been an incredible partnership and we're looking forward to to where it goes from here [Music]

Channel: Obama Foundation

Views: 1,833

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Id: RdceVkNowTA

Length: 4min 41sec (281 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2023