(MAGIC, Inc.)
The Chicago local BMB 2025 Civic Engagement work will enlist the help of those most affected. According to recent research, African American males experience far greater disparities than other groups across almost every social, educational, economic, and health indicator measured for success. So the question of what can we do to transform the conditions facing Black men and boys is a serious issue that affects all of us.
Our systems are in dire need of being revamped and our young fathers are very much aware of how the systems have failed them. We will be reaching out and training a group of young fathers ages 18-30 who will learn how to do outreach and share with their peers the importance of becoming engaged in the 2025 Network and the work itself.
Our young men will not only become leaders for themselves, but for their communities as well. This hard to reach and target population will have champions arise from their ranks to ensure that their voices will be heard.
The NOLA BMB Initiative seeks to shape a new future for black men and boys in the great city of New Orleans. This is a multi-year initiative is composed of strategic community and national campaigns focused on issues of critical impact on Black Men & Boys. Community-rooted campaigns will focus on community-building and policy advocacy. Together these separate campaigns work toward one shared vision of helping to make New Orleans a place where Black Men & Boys thrive.
The Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) utilizes a social change model that incorporates civic engagement, leadership development, community organizing, public policy advocacy and a robust legal strategy to realize community dreams. Los Angeles holds the unfortunate title of the country’s “homeless capital”, with a conservative estimate of 51,340 homeless people in LA County (Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority; 2011 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count).
African Americans are severely overrepresented in the ranks of Angelinos forced to live without housing. Almost half of homeless residents in the City of Los Angeles are African American (2011 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count), although African Americans comprise only 8% of the City’s overall population (2010 Census). This extreme racial disparity should be a clarion call for a more robust exploration of cause, effect, and potential interventions, but it has not resulted in such to date.
As a local impact site of the 2025 Network for Black Men and Boys, LA CAN views implementation and monitoring of victories as essential to insuring our “wins” really change the health outcomes for Black men and boys and their families In Los Angeles.
The Atlanta Community Engagement Team (ACET) has embarked on its Civic Engagement campaign as part of the next phase of its local impact site work for the 2025 Black Men & Boys Campaign in Atlanta. ACET will build upon its Justice mapping project that it uses to engage state policy makers, advocates, organizers and direct service providers. The Civic Engagement campaign will serve as an avenue to spark discussions in local communities and demonstrate how the 2025 Black Men & Boys ”We Dream A World” policy recommendations can affect positive change for citizens of Georgia.
Coupled with the mapping survey data, the Civic engagement campaign will organize and base build in targeted communities. The goal is to build a community lead advocacy campaign to enact and change policies positively for Black men and boys. Armed with the research, the community will have the necessary information to document the high levels of criminal justice governance, harsh school disciplinary policies and low school and student performance statistics. The community will now be able to show the negative affect that past policies and practices has had on Black Men & Boys in Fulton County, GA .