Nehemiah’s Full Circle Leadership

This year was the first year of the M.R. (Male Responsibility) Program. The M.R. Program was made for Black boys/young men. Chris Lewis and I lead the group at Sherman Middle School, and though the group is new and there were more than a few bumps in the road, we consider it a success. The goals of the group are to create leaders, have a safe space for the boys to be authentically themselves, and create long-lasting relationships. To meet those goals, we first needed to build rapport with the kids. Essentially that just means that we need to spend enough time with them to have a baseline level of familiarity and trust before we get into deeper conversations. We played basketball, football, card games, listened to music, and had conversations about being Black. Now at the end of the school year, all of the boys are very comfortable in group, and even kids who just see us around the school who aren’t a part of the group are showing interest in Chris and me and what the group has to offer. 

I have learned a lot while helping lead this program. One of the first things I learned was that no matter how much and detailed you plan when serving this demographic, you need to be able to go with the flow and stay on your toes. There have been many times when what we planned to do in group that day went out the window as soon as we stepped inside the school. I’ve also learned that identifying leadership qualities in youth looks different than in adults. Chris and I both have gone through Nehemiah youth programming in the past and more recently the Justified Anger Leadership Institute and I know personally that growing up, the adults around me have said that I was a leader but I never knew how they knew that or what they saw to come to that conclusion. But now that I am in the position of leading a youth program, when I saw leadership qualities in the boys I had a cool full-circle moment.

The overarching goal for the group was to have a positive impact on the boys we are serving. Over the few months that the group has existed, we have seen that impact in the boys themselves. They are more comfortable around me and Chris as well as each other. They have told other kids about the group, and that has led to us having higher attendance almost every week. I have also seen some of the boys go out of their way to help or lead their peers, either on their own or with a little encouragement from Chris and me. For example, when we were playing a trivia card game and everyone took turns reading the questions and answers, occasionally one of the boys would come across a word they couldn’t pronounce. Instead of making (too much) fun of their pier struggling with a word as they might have in a different environment, a couple of the boys would ask if they needed help and pronounce the word for them before giving the card back to let them finish reading.

The M.R. program is new and still growing. We have used this school year as a sort of a trial run and we have already seen so many good things from the short time the group has been meeting. We are so excited and looking forward to continuing the partnership between Nehemiah and Sherman Middle School. And we can’t wait to see what the future holds for this chapter of Nehemiah’s Youth Programming.

This article was written and contributed by Harry J. Hawkins