Albuquerque, NM. On November, 15, 2018 the Native American Community Academy Inspired Schools Network, (NISN) was officially awarded the prestigious, Obama Foundation’s, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance Impact Award. One of nineteen organizations across ten states, including Puerto Rico, NISN is recognized by MBKA as a national model committed to reducing youth violence, grow effective mentorship programs, and measurably improve the lives of boys and young men of color.

The winning communities represent every region of the country, strong public-private partnerships, and diverse cities, rural areas, Tribal Nations, and barrios of all sizes. Winning organizations will receive a $450,000 grant, direct technical assistance, and evaluation support. Youth and leaders from many of the organizations will participate in the Obama Foundation’s 2018 Summit in Chicago November 18-19.

In partnership with staff and youth of New Mexico Dream Team, Cultivating Coders, La Plazita Institute, Together for Brothers, Mission: Graduate, MBK Albuquerque and the City of Albuquerque, NISN will deepen and scale a community of practice on social emotional learning. This community of practice will scale the NACA model to encourage safe, equitable, and culturally-relevant school environments that promote the success of boys and young men of color in terms of attendance, persistence, and graduation rates.

The Network will facilitate a local community of practice, document practices and challenges especially relevant to boys and young men of color and engage youth in sharing their social emotional learning experience with local educational leaders, informing future practices and policies. While the primary population served by the MBK Project will be 460 Indigenous/Native American and Latino boys, NACA Inspired Schools’ expansion will impact all boys/students of color across their network and communities-at-large.

In April, MBK Alliance launched a new national competition to identify and invest in communities that are making steady progress to substantially improve the lives of boys and young men of color. President Barack Obama says of the MBKA, “My Brother’s Keeper was not about me, it was not about my presidency… It’s about all of us working together. Because ensuring that our young people can go as far as their dreams and hard work will take them is the single most important task that we have as a nation.”

Please visit www.obama.org/mbka/communties for a full list of all My Brother’s Keeper Alliance IMPACT awardees.

Our community partners are listed here:

· New Mexico Dream Team http://nmdreamteam.org/ ,

· La Plazita Insitute https://laplazitainstitute.org/ ,

· Together for Brothers, https://www.togetherforbrothers.org/ ,

· Cultivating Coders, https://cultivatecoders.com/ ,

· Mission: Graduate, https://missiongraduatenm.org/ ,

· The City of Albuquerque, https://www.cabq.gov/

· My Brother’s Keeper ABQ, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/my-brothers-keeper