One Love Global Hosts Summit to Celebrate Black Youth and Launch Scorecard Measuring Region’s Progress towards Racial Equity
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2021
LANSING—June 4, 10 am to 4 pm ET, online (via Zoom and streaming live on Facebook) and in-person at One Love Global (3525 S Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Suite B) will mark the start of a summer centered on racial justice for the future of our community and wellbeing of all young people.
It’s been a long year. The impacts of COVID-19 and racial trauma, compounded by the highly publicized murders of Black people in this nation, on our youth have been staggering. The need for joy, healing, and justice is urgent.
At One Love Global, this period is being ushered in with the MBKGEN Blk Renaissance Covid Era Summit. The summit will reconvene the My Brother’s Keeper and Girls Equity Network of Michigan, which has continued to grow out of a 2014 challenge issued by President Barack Obama to ensure all youth of color, of diverse gender identities, can reach their full potential within safe and supportive communities.
It will be a unique opportunity for the organizing and wisdom of Black youth to take center stage. “This gives young people the opportunity to be experts in telling society their own experiences, without them being undermined,” said Florence Alexander, One Love Global Program Director. “It is an event meant to be for us and by us, empowering our communities.” It will also feature speakers and artists grappling with these issues, including KT Saxon and Ozay Moore.
All attendees will be invited to partner in achieving the network's milestones across the state of Michigan. They include ensuring Black and Brown youth: (1) Get a Healthy Start and Enter School Ready to Learn, (2) Can Read at Grade Level by Third Grade, (3) Graduate from High School Ready for College and Career, (4) Complete Postsecondary Education or Training, (5) Successfully Enter the Workforce, and (6) Stay on Track and Receive Second Chances.
In addition, this event will be the formal launch of One Love Global’s Racial Equity Scorecard for the Metro Lansing Area. "Having an easily accessible source of disaggregated data to measure the outcomes for youth has taken a decade to bring to fruition. We owe great thanks to VISTA for having full-time assistance to build the racial equity scorecard and achieve one of our priorities for Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation of Metro Lansing," said Angela Waters Austin, Chief Executive Officer.
The scorecard democratizes data and promotes results-based accountability for where our tax dollars are being spent and how effective municipal and community efforts are in achieving progress towards racial equity. It is long overdue for the region that is home to the state’s capitol.
At its launch, the scorecard will include indicators related to the wellbeing of Black and Brown young people in our community, including education, housing, and job opportunities. It will expand overtime to include other metrics driven by the priorities of young people, such as policing, health, climate, and more.
If you have a metric that you would like to see included or a dataset you would like to contribute, you can reach out to connect@oneloveglobal.org.
We invite everyone to join One Love Global in kicking off the summer with renewed focus on racial equity in the region for generations to come.
###
One Love Global is a Black-led community organization in Lansing committed to achieving racial equity, empowering young people as organizers, and building political power—and we believe that healing and connecting with one another is essential to this mission. Our work is guided by the recognition that a root cause of every area of systemic injustice is racism and white supremacy.
CONTACT:
Jordan Scrimger