The Rohan Levy Foundation, named after a teen who was shot and killed in Brooklyn three years ago, works with African-American males in Brooklyn to get and keep them off the street.
Participants receive a stipend and scholarships, along with valuable job training skills.
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"To have someone like Nadine who believed in me, saw potential in me," Joshua Griffith said.
Potential -- that's what these young Black men want people to see in them and invest in. It's something foundation founder Nadine Sylvester realized needed to happen, sadly, in the very worst way possible, with the death of her son.
"When I started to go to court, one of the things that came out of it...he didn't have any other outlet," she said. "There were other things he was interested in, and he didn't have an outlet for that. And he turned to this type of outlet, which was hanging in the wrong crowd."
In February 2017, 15-year-old Rohan Levy left his home to play basketball when police say Zidon Clarke mistook him for a gang rival and shot him in the back of the head. He died three days later.
It's the viscous cycle of violence the Rohan Levy Foundation is trying to stop. The organization provides college scholarships and started the Flatbush Leadership Academy, a seven month stipend-based program for young African American men ages 16 to 24.
"We have kids that are going to college, but things are happening before they get to college," Sylvester said.
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Participants say what they learn is invaluable.
"Leadership," Latif Rashid said. "Basically mold us to become something greater."
And it provides an alternative.
"It takes all of us young men...nothing to do, just hanging on a Saturday, and it brings us somewhere where can learn valuable life skills," Isaiah Desrosiers said.
Career building skills and exposure, an investment that could be the difference between life and death.
"I think now they understand that life and the world that they were living in, there's more to the world than just that one particular bubble," Pastor Gilford Monrose. "I know this summer we had a lot of violence, a lot of crime, a lot of shootings, that look just like these young men...They are the success story for the summer. They are the success story."
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RESOURCES
We are also publishing resources in a range of areas, which will grow and can be found below:
Ways to Help
Black Lives Matter
Black Voters Matter Fund
NAACP
National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform
Voices of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL-NY)
Black LGBTQIA + Migrants Project
Teaching the Next Generation
Black Lives Matter at School
Creating Space To Talk About Racism At Your School
Teaching for Black Lives - Rethinking Schools
Black-Owned Bookstores in New York and New Jersey
Cafe con Libros (Brooklyn)
Grandma's Place (Harlem)
Sister's Uptown (Manhattan)
Source of Knowledge (Newark)
The Lit. Bar (Bronx)
The Little Boho Bookshop (Bayonne)
Books
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children In A Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Podcasts
1619
Black Wall Street 1921
Jemele Hill is Unbothered
Still Processing:
Movies
American Son: Available on Netflix
If Beale Street Could Talk: Available on Hulu
Just Mercy: Available on Amazon Prime
Selma: Available on Amazon Prime
The Hate U Give: Available on Amazon Prime
When They See Us: Available on Netflix
Documentaries
13th: Available on Netflix
America Inside Out with Katie Couric: Available on National Geographic
Becoming: Available on Netflix
I am Not Your Negro: Available on YouTube