My Brother’s Keeper Nashville hosted its second annual mentorship summit for Black and Brown boys on July 23.
The Our Voices, Our Truths summit, led by MBK Nashville Co-Chairs Lonnell Matthews and Ashford Hughes was a celebration of the powerful voices, identities, and the collective genius of our young males. It featured interactive workshops on mental health, personal branding, video gaming and game design, arts and culture, literacy and leadership, and more.
The celebration also included a workshop for parents focused on navigating the school system and the various resources in support of their young children.
In addition to this celebration, MBK Nashville kicked off last month its inaugural ‘I Read, I Lead’ literacy campaign to benefit Black and Brown boys in Nashville. The campaign will collect and distribute 10,000 books through December—20,000 books over the next year. The goal of this citywide campaign is to address the literacy crisis in Nashville with an intentional effort to dismantle reading apathy for boys of color. Black and Brown boys suffer from the lowest literacy rates when compared to their peers nationwide.
