About the Project
The Beyond the Bricks Project is a media and international community engagement initiative to encourage and promote community based solutions to increasing educational and social outcomes for school age black males. Statistics like 47% of black males nationwide are graduating high school on time; they are consistently the lowest performing students in 36 states; more than 60% reside in fatherless homes, 45% live in homes that fall below poverty level and the most dismal incarceration rates of any group in the nation tells us that. BLACK MALES ARE IN CRISIS! However, our mission is to share with the nation, and especially those in communities where our young men live and go to school that BEYOND THE STATISTICS, are real stories of the children, and BEYOND THE OBSTACLES are the promises of the past, and BEYOND THE BRICKS (all that is holding our children back) are the HOPES FOR TOMORROW!
The "Beyond the Bricks" film follows African-American students Shaquiel Ingram and Erick Graham as they struggle to stay on track in the Newark, NJ public school system. Weaved into the boys’ stories is commentary from some of the country’s foremost leaders, experts and scholars focused on black boys and their education including Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Schott Foundation for Public Education President Dr. John Jackson, Dr. Pedro Noguera of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, and Dr. Ivory Toldson, Senior Research Analyst for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, among others. Though the film focuses on students from Newark, NJ, the issues addressed there extend to urban enclaves throughout the nation.
The Beyond the Bricks Project takes a grassroots approach to improving outcomes for young black males, by engaging community members- including the young men themselves- as well as educators, civic leaders, and other stakeholders to craft solutions to the challenges they face in their neighborhoods, cities, and the nation as a whole, while encouraging them to examine their roles as role models and community citizens. BTBP also believes that taking an asset-based attitude that seeks to build on young black males’ strengths, individually and collectively, helps to prepare young men to be leaders in advancing themselves, each other, and their communities. We work to establish partnerships throughout the country and the world to encourage communities to address not only the educational and social inequities that contribute to failure, but also to look at the change that’s necessary within so that everyone is accountable and takes responsibility for the success of our children. We must begin to recognize and invest in them as untapped resources if we are to encourage better leadership for the future. The project aims to create a national network of communities, organizations, universities and individuals who are committed to shifting the trajectory of all our young people towards success and community advocacy.
Through The Beyond the Bricks Project’s core components of international community engagement, Community Producers Program, and Fellows Institute Program there are 3 overarching objectives as a social change project:
1) Help refocus the agenda away from merely identifying the problems among black males in the public school system to one that encourages, promotes and strengthen community-based solutions to increasing educational and social outcomes.
2) Increase positive public engagement in the lives of Black male youth in the communities where they are most at risk for failure in the pursuit of a quality education.
3) Encourage the development of youth leadership and activism within communities that emphasize citizenship and an appreciation of cultural values.
We welcome everyone who understands that they have a role to play and are ready and committed to change. Please join us and a global village of concerned citizens in helping our children build brighter futures for all children.
Produce! Create! Innovate!-This past Spring semester (Spring 2012), I had the honor of serving in the capacity of Adjunct Professor through the Institute of Urban & Minority Education on the Teachers College campus at Columbia University. I taught 10 amazing young scholars-Jamal, Jaffet, Keion, Jeremiah, Khani, Malik, Thierno ("Chris), Luis, Quency, and Jaquan. Our primary objective was to transform these talented gentlemen into community producers of their own documentaries. Through careful thought and reflection, they developed into more mature, more innovative, and more accountable individuals. View the link to see what some of the producers had to say about their experience.
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