Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry announced Wednesday that the City will make more of an effort to help young men of color.
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama announced his My Brother’s Keeper initiative, or MBK. It challenges cities across the country to implement plans that help young people of color reach their full potential.
In Fort Wayne, MBK will focus specifically on education, employment, health, and youth.
Stephanie Crandall with the mayor’s office says MBK will require making a lot of partnerships between local organizations.
“What the city really offers is that convening power," says Crandall, "being able to bring people together in the same room to talk about whether or not they’re having the same struggles, challenges, and how we can all work together to meet those challenges.”
But taking steps towards meeting those challenges may still be a ways off.
Fort Wayne is already taking part in several similar programs to MBK, like the National League of Cities Black Male Achievement Initiative which began last year. The first step in that program was to collect data.
Crandall says as a result of those efforts, the city determined it would need to collect even more data and input, before it could make an action plan.