National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI)

Happy Friday!

This week is all about organizations that take to the forefront if issues that affect students within our local communities.

I have chose last week's organization, The National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) to further gather information on their distinct mission and how they help families within our communities.

First and foremost, I LOVE how this organization specifically cater to the develooment of Black youth. I am not a fan of the political blanket term "POC" and how it is used as an umbrella to encompass issues people of color face as a universal thing. Absolutely not. My community's stuggle of oppression and raciaim differ and vary from the issues of language barriers and immigration to the Latino community and issues if the "model minority" complex of Asian-Americans.

Furthermore, Black youth lag behind in local, state, and national data concerning academic achievement and overall socioeconomic success behind their peers. Organizations such as NBCDI are utilized to nit only close those achievment gaps but are also used to meet the special and unique needs of young black children.

NBCDI uses both policy and local grassroots, community involvement to better serve Black students through partnerships with local, state, and federal policy makers to ensure adequate funding goes towards high-risk schools, a well-qualified, diverse workforce is a constant within the learning enviornment, while efforts to retain and train a more qualified work force is implemented. NBDCI knows that young Black children are often educated by less qualified, experienced educators that inadvertently stunt and/or delay growth and maturation.

Health/ Wellness is another huge investment NBCDI is at the forefront of tackling when it comes to their families and students. Through their affiliate networks and partnerships with organizations and business like Wal-Mart, health and wellness is addressed through an implementation of healthy eating habits and nurtrional curriculum that is demonstrated in a variety of mediums through their affiliate network. Food demonstrations in a local community grocer to promote healthier eating options while literature and material for a better quality of health through a more conscious mind at a local community event are just a few of the ways that NBCDI get involved.

These are just a few of the ways NBCDI gets involved into assisting African-American families into becoming healthier and more prosperous while creating better developing outcomes for their students.

NBCDI acknowledges that the ever-changing demographic is becoming more reflective of a time where cultures blend and create blended families and mixed-race children. However, what I appreciate is the fact that the issues and controversies unique to each individual ethnic group- in this case, African-Americans, are not swept under the rug or pushed into a generalized POC category. NBCDI acknowledges the unique challenges of the average Black family and uses its platform to better serve those students and families directly as opposed to indirectly.

https://www.nbcdi.org/who-we-are