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Give Back program aims to steer Southeast Raleigh students from gangs into STEM, careers and mental-health supports
Summary
Presenters from the Give Back organization told Wake County’s Community Family Engagement Committee they run STEM, career-exposure and behavioral-health components that target vulnerable students in Southeast Raleigh, and said partners provide most program funding and in-kind supports.
Ronnell Robinson, founder of the Give Back organization, told the Wake County Public School System’s Community Family Engagement Committee on June 10 that his group created a program called “Games over Gangs” to steer students away from neighborhood gang activity by teaching them game design and coding at nearby universities.
The presentation, given along with Carlos Pope of a university health-affiliated pipeline program and Jasmine Preston of Mentor, Raising Mentors Behavioral Health Services, outlined three linked program components: a STEM/game-design summer camp, multi-generation workforce and career pathways exposure, and weekly integrated behavioral-health sessions for participating youth.
The program’s core offer, Robinson said, originally sent students to NC State for four- to five-week camps where participants learned to code video games and experience a university environment they otherwise might not see. Robinson said the camp began as an effort to answer two questions: “How…
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