Reconnect Brooklyn was founded to address a neighborhood need: too many good young men were having too many bad life outcomes. Too much violence…too much under-education…too little opportunity to imagine a different future.
Bedford Stuyvesant and surrounding neighborhoods continue to have some of the highest numbers of disconnected youth in New York City – young people not in school and not working – with most struggling from the consequences of intergenerational poverty and historic community neglect. Street corners became centers for disconnected
youth.
Reconnect Brooklyn was born with one simple idea – if young men aren’t prepared to leave ‘the corner’, then we transform ‘the corner’ – and what better way to transform it than through local, formative employment and a healthy community of mentors and peers.
Reconnect Brooklyn does the hard work to do some pretty simple things:
- Co-create Employment that teaches our youth how to work
- Co-create Community that teaches our youth to gain confidence
- Co-create Possibilities that teaches our youth that there are options for the future
Since 2011, Reconnect Brooklyn has employed over 175 young men, 17-24. For most of these men, it was their first job.
Over 90% of our Youth Partners successfully completed their initial employment at one of Reconnect Brooklyn social enterprises.
Over 80% of these young men continue to be employed in New York City and beyond.
In the next 5 years, Reconnect Brooklyn will:
- Engage another 200 young men through employment and education
- Establish a facility with expanded social enterprise and educational space
- Increase connections to higher education and training in advanced manufacturing
- Widen community, educational and industry partnerships
