Bro/Sis Leadership from top left: Khary Lazarre-White, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Jason Warwin, Associate Executive Director & Co-Founder, Wendy De Jesus, Associate Director for Programming & Cidra Sebastien, Associate Executive Director 
 

Bro/Sis Leadership Impacting the Field

National Foundations

• Thrive Foundation for Youth - On December 10th to 12th, Khary Lazarre-White, Jason Warwin, and Wendy De Jesus attended a conference hosted by the Thrive Foundation for Youth held specifically for its grant recipients.  Bro/Sis was awarded this grant along with only seven other youth-serving organizations from around the U.S., based on our proven track record of directly impacting youth in the communities we serve.  Bro/Sis and representatives from these seven different cohort organizations, participated in a series of workshops discussing best practices for youth organizations. 
   
• Charles Hayden Foundation - On January 20th - 22nd Jason hosted a training in Boston to educate teachers and grantees from the Charles Hayden Foundation about the Bro/Sis' Rites of Passage model and how to effectively use it to impact the lives of young people.  On January 21st, Jose Lora, Shawn Bolden, Frantz Jerome and Enmanuel Candelario, alumni and staff members of Bro/Sis, spoke to the group at the training about their experience as members and the value of the Rites of Passage Program.

Trainings

• Public Allies - On December 12th, Cidra M. Sebastien led a workshop consisting of 30 Public Allies.  Her workshop instructed participants on public speaking, networking and their role as young leaders. 

• Department of Education - On February 2nd, Cidra facilitated three training sessions on Bro/Sis' youth development model for the Department of Education's District 79 for people who work with youth in non traditional settings.

• Columbia University - On February 26th, Cidra will host students from Columbia University's School of Public Health (CUSPH) at our site.  Each year students from CUSPH join Bro/Sis to learn about our work and the model we have created and the ways in which we are a public health model - helping young people to delay having children, to graduate from high school, to resolve conflict without violence, to have open conversations about their bodies and sexuality and our work to decrease poverty - all public health determinants. 

Huffington Post

• On February 10th, Khary latest essay "Unspeakable Hope" was published in the Huffington Post.  "We must use our gifts, our education, our awareness, our scars and opportunities -- our lived experience -- to work on the issues that bind us, as well as to seek answers and solutions to those that suppress and divide us.  To be free is to be abel to expand and deepen oneself through work and experience, while also working to create opportunity for other, to take on the status quo when it is unjust, to create art that challenges power and expected norms."  Click Here to read the article.

Members of Bro/Sis Take Action

On January 15th, Liberation Program members Yancy Fernandez, Kevin Louissaint, and Liberation Program Organizer Simone Gamble spoke at the National Association of Social Workers-Social and Government Committee meeting. The members spoke about social work, fair policing, and the connections to systemic oppression.
 

On January 15th, Liberation Program members participated in the "Flood the Subways" day of action. Members, effectively carrying on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., went into the 145th Street train station and talked to people about ending "Broken Windows Policing." They also shared ideas about what type of police presence they want in their community.
 

Brotherhood members at their Winter Retreat

Members Bonding and Growing Together

This year we are celebrating our 20th year anniversary.  

Come celebrate at our annual VOICES event  

taking place on May 14th.