February 17, 2024

Dear Council Member,

You have a jewel in your council district known as the Egbe Iwa Rites of Passage Program.

I am proud and honored to be its founder and president. For 22 years, we have been conducting a unique Afrocentric rites of passage program for our Black and Brown youth, mostly from Brooklyn but representing every other borough as well. During this period, we have graduated over 100 Black and Brown youth with the dropout rate of less than 1%. For the past two decades, we’ve been operating as a “volunteer” organization with neither I nor my staff receiving any compensation. We did it as a labor of love and we did it because our children needed that special foundation that allows them to believe that dreams can come true.

After a strategic planning retreat held in January, it was decided that the organization needed to move to the next level of capacity building and organizational development. That means obtaining grants that allow us to hire staff and other professionals necessary to conduct this program.

Because the attached application explains the details of the program, I will yield the rest of the space to one of the people who participated in and benefited from the program. I hope you will be influenced by their words unedited by me and spoken as we always do, from the heart.

Respectfully,

Founder and Alakoso (Director) Amma Oloriwaa!