About NWCM
Our Mission
Our mission is to empower new and emerging Black and Brown community leaders, returning citizens and community-rooted organizations through Capacity Building – teaching the tools to build a seat at the table, Policy Advocacy – building acumen for lasting transformative change, and Positive Youth Justice – investing in the next generation of Black and Brown leadership.
Utilizing the Credible Messengers Model, we are focused on cultivating racial justice through the proactive reinforcement of policies, practices, attitudes, and actions that produce equitable power, access, opportunities, treatment, impacts and outcomes for Black and Brown leaders, empowering young people and strengthening our impacted communities to collective success.
01. Vision
We operate out of the Positive Youth Justice methodology, that relationships produce results, utilizing this process to focus on the experiential connections to resources, services, supports and leadership, ensuring that young people may not have seen as an option in the past, is clear and present in their lives.
02. Values
We believe in the inherent strength in our communities to support each other and that relying on punitive sanctions is harmful, ineffective, and contributes to lifelong social debts and economic inequity.
03. Partnership
We strategically build partnerships and connections from the broader regional community who can contribute to our process development and engage our youth through a culturally relevant and responsive lens, creating access to a menu of transformative services.
Building Community Strength
We Believe…
…that through aligning those closest to the “problems” (Credible Messengers, family members, and community leaders and organizations) we come closer to the innovation required to develop sustainable alternative solutions to traditional punitive and suppressive practices.
We design our work specifically to build connections with “hard to reach” young people and to equip Credible Messengers with the tools to effectively build relationships with young people and families with connections to Power Groups, and other public agencies they are connected to through adverse situations. Trained Credible Messengers will learn how to serve as mentors and advocates in these settings, developing an understanding of how to build relationships, professionalism, and cultivate the capacity for effective service provision and accurate reporting when running programs impacting young people connected to Power Groups.
Glenn Martin, Just Leadership USA Founder
“Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.”
We believe that Credible Messengers are uniquely qualified mentors. Through this lens we strive to bring those from the margins to the center of the work impacting our communities.
