Duo Chosen for My Brother’s Keeper Fellows Program

POUGHKEEPSIE – Khamari Hardin plans on becoming a teacher.

The Poughkeepsie High School senior pictures himself in a leadership role guiding children.
This year he, and classmate Isaiah Williams, will receive specialized coaching in the hopes they grow into such a position in the community.

Hardin and Williams are this year’s My Brother’s Keeper Fellows for the district.

Each year, two seniors are chosen for the Fellows Program, in which they will take part in community-based service projects, school- and community-based activities, statewide gatherings and other networking opportunities, virtual book study with other fellows from across the state, and regular mentorship sessions with Executive Director of School Engagement Da’Ron Wilson and junior class guidance counselor Jason Conrad.

“These two young men worked hard. We see them,” Conrad said. “We want them to be representatives of Poughkeepsie High School.”

The pair was inducted as fellows at a statewide MBK symposium last spring. On Friday, the district held a ceremony in which both signed a commitment letter to the program, as did their mothers, Conrad and Dr. Eric Jay Rosser, superintendent of schools.

“I feel like it’s about representing myself in a positive sense,” Hardin said of the program. “It’s also a sense of responsibility. It’s good to be in a leadership-type role, that I think more people need to be into in this school.”

President Barack Obama established the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force in 2014, creating an interagency mission focusing on the opportunity gap faced by boys and young men of color. New York in 2016 became the first state to enact the MBK initiative into law.

The fellowship program is a branch of the larger MBK local program, of which Williams and Hardin have been a part. The common thread throughout each of the district’s branches is the objective to provide mentorship to young men.

“There is the MBK program in which the district and the community are working together to support Black and Brown students,” fellowship program coordinator Diandria Williams said. “Then, there is the component in which you’re working specifically within the schools within MBK. And then there is the fellowship program.”

She noted the former Brother To Brother program was absorbed into the larger MBK district family of programs.

Across the state, 36 school communities take part in the Fellows Program, which is funded by a state grant.

Isaiah Williams wants to go into civil engineering and praised the opportunities the program may bring. Already, he said, he connected with someone at last year’s symposium who pursued STEM learning in college. “I was able to get his information for him to help me out,” he said.

While much of the fellowship focuses on mentorship, book study and community engagement to give the students the maturity to act as leaders, there are also more tangible elements aimed at giving them a leg up after graduation. The fellows received school supplies Friday and, upon completion of the program, they will receive a stipend, a Chromebook, a printer, school supplies and professional attire.

“So, when you go into that next stage of life, you go in prepared not only academically, socially, but you’re looking prepared,” Conrad said. “And, that’s a good feeling.”

Throughout the ceremony Friday, Conrad and Rosser reminded the students the program is not only a privilege and an honor, but also a responsibility and a commitment.

“This is big. This should be important to you.” Conrad told them. “You are the representatives for My Brother’s Keeper for this district. You’re going to be the ones going to the meetings, reading several different books; you’re going to be the ones asking questions … you’re going to be the ones paying it forward to the next fellows next year.”

At the end of the program, they submit a plan to the state regarding how they would help the next generation.

“How do we get more young men of color to be educators? How can more young men want to do math and science? How do we foster that growth?” Conrad asked rhetorically.

Rosser thanked Williams and Hardin not only for what they did to become fellows, but also what they will do to represent themselves and the Poughkeepsie community in adulthood.

The superintendent said he expected both to support the young men that come after them, just as he had individuals lifting him up.

“What we’re doing is providing you the training ground – no different from going to practice – to develop an understanding of self, to develop an understanding of community, to develop an understanding of what’s important in this world,” Rosser said, “so that you can then be able to lead in such a way that will provide you with the ability to be leaders in your own right in the future.