LEARNSee A Man, Be A Man (SAMBAM) Program
The See A Man Be A Man program is a place on Locke College Preparatory Academy’s campus where young men come together to realize and develop their leadership abilities. We surround students with powerful mentors and role models to learn from, and our 9-point program guides students to grow holistically. As we expand our program to include young women, we are improving the curriculum to cover college goals, career, health, culture, spirituality, and more.
In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
South LA
In what stage of innovation is this project?
Expand existing program
Please list the organizations collaborating on this proposal.
One Voice
If you are submitting a collaborative proposal, please describe the specific role of partner organizations in the project.
One Voice works now as a partner serving our students, as they look for guidance selecting a college, community college, or trade school upon high school graduation. Their Scholars Program prepares and supports 150 low-income students from Los Angeles for college success through professional college advisement, personal counseling, college essay instruction, SAT preparation courses, application and testing fees, emergency funds, and “wraparound” services available to each Scholar and each Scholars’ family. to graduate from college.
As a testament to their commitment, 100% of their Scholars are admitted to four-year colleges, 95% graduate from college, and over 30% go on to graduate school.
What is the need you’re responding to?
FA-MLI’s services resonate naturally with our students as their lives
are often filled with traumatic, life-altering events that inform their social/academic/personal behavior. Many of our students have witnessed the murders of loved ones and live with the trauma of sexual molestation, drug abuse, alcoholism, verbal assault, systemic racism, and educational maltreatment. Ninety percent of our students have no father or viable male role model in their lives, and sixty five percent live with a single mother or grandmother.
Our services are culturally authentic and instructors share a similar social/racial/ background as students comfortably relate to them. Our unique mentoring and school based art programs follow a nine-point curriculum, which teaches youth to accept personal responsibility for their lives. Embedded in the curriculum are the development of life skills (i.e. anger management), preparing for job interviews, civic engagement, cultural literacy, and much more.
Why is this project important to the work of your organization?
Due to the increase in low graduation rates, substance abuse, teenage pregnancies, gang involvement and death related shootings affecting African Americans and Hispanics between the ages of 12 to 30, FA-MLI Inc. is dedicated to targeting underrepresented demographics.
Our commitment is to advance social and economic equity in under-resourced communities by developing projects and programs dedicated to transforming the lives of at-risk (at-promise) youth and communities in Los Angeles, focusing on Watts, Compton, South L.A. and Inglewood. Starting with our program at Locke High, we directly serve the residents of Nickerson Gardens - the largest public housing project west of the Mississippi River, and the birthplace of the Crips and the Bloods.
FA-MLI is proud to announce that for the past five years, its program efforts have graduated 100 percent of the youth who arrived to the 12th grade, with 80% enrolling in college and 20% enlisting in the United States Military.
Approximately how many people will be impacted by this proposal?
Direct Impact: 325
Indirect Impact: 4,500
Please describe the broader impact of your proposal.
Our program reduces the number of youth involved in the justice system by preventing them from going in to begin with. At Locke High, we engage with campus security and administrators in an effort to provide alternative methods of discipline that diverts kids away from the juvenile justice system by offering crisis counseling, parent-engagement, home visits, and reflective writing assignments and mindfulness that addresses the root causes of crime and victimization.
This is a way of thinking systemically and holistically about the complex, multiple interconnected roots of social problems in our neighborhoods. It calls for collaborative, comprehensive and sustained efforts to transform these underlying conditions through participation.
Please explain how you will define and measure success for your project.
The program staff will collect data to determine whether activities outlined in the program outcomes are being implemented as planned. This will include attendance of students at each activity, session, workshops, field trips, and other program related events. Demographic information of students will be collected as well as surveys including questions and opinions on program success, as well as areas that need improvement. Once students enroll in the programs, they will be administered surveys with questions on career goals, college plans, and students outlook on life without a crime record.
The same survey will be administered to students on a quarterly basis to determine if the program produced its intended effect on students life without crime. Results from the surveys will be shared as a Progress Report with Program staff and any My LA2050200 appointed evaluator.
Which of the LEARN metrics will your submission impact?
College matriculation
High school graduation rates
Proficiency in STEM
Which of LA2050’s resources will be of the most value to you?
Communications support