The Bakari© Project: A Lifeline for African American Adolescent Development and Success

Abstract

The Bakari© Project is an African-centered, community-based, educational, and mentoring program for adolescent youth. The program is designed to address the challenges Black youth and other youth of color face in negotiating the community terrain between the home, school, and community, including the contact young people often encounter with law enforcement and the criminal justice systems. We assert that there is a nexus between critical elements in the communities that form a triangle for success and that too often, the aforementioned components are not working together because each dimension of the triangle blames the other for the challenges the youth face and the failures they experience. In answering the question of what is the role of Black psychologists in this process, this article is intended to invite readers to help reconnect the triangle, while introducing a model and method of effectively intervening in the lives of young people who may struggle with successfully navigating the developmental transition of adolescence to young adulthood. We conclude with a call for implementing similar programs in communities throughout the United States.