Statistics show that black men are falling behind in academic achievement and in setting and meeting personal and career goals.

In response to the learning gap that disproportionately impacts black men, the Higher Attainment thru Wisdom and Knowledge (HAWK) Institute hopes to understand and reverse the negative trend by offering leadership, tutoring and financial education to black men.

Dr. Charles Ratliff, Ph.D. in Administration of Higher Education and Policy Analysis and a HAWK Institute co-founder, researched the needs of black communities during the planning phase of the institute which has been in operation for just over two months.

“We kept looking at all the statistics out there starting with student proficiency scores in the California public schools,” said Ratliff. “And black males were the lowest performing group of all identified students. Even with English, born in America, they [young black men] had lower proficiencies than immigrants coming into the public schools.”

Founded by black community leaders, educators and entrepreneurs, HAWK Institute, based in Sacramento, is committed to increasing the opportunities available to young black men. According to Ratliff, the institute aims to inspire self-confidence and provide support to young black men.

“Part of what we have to do is work directly with students themselves to make sure they understand, ‘I believe in me, and I believe in what my mind can learn and what I can achieve,’” said Ratliff. “And they then put in the time and the e ort necessary to achieve what they have set out for themselves.”

There is not a clear understanding, according to Ratliff, of what has contributed to the continued degradation of black males’ success.

One current goal for HAWK leadership, Ratliff said, is to learn, by working directly with students, what needs there are in the community and then to facilitate services which meet those needs.

“Part of our decision to interact with the students themselves, first, is to begin to help us to get more informed about what else in their life is causing these kind of slow and low achievement outcomes. As we learn more about that, it may alter the kind of priorities we put on the services that we need to be providing to students and the schools they are attending.”, Ratliff said.

The services HAWK Institute provides depends on a variety of existing services within black communities. According to Gabriel Simeon, HAWK vice president, chief marketing officer and cofounder, the institute partners with “all the organizations within the Sacramento community that have an emphasis on the black male initiative.”
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“The whole initiative of HAWK is to be the conveners of the leadership in the black community,” Simeon said. “There [are] other organizations that we have alliances with that are doing things in the community. Our objective isn’t to take over — only to organize and collectively bring together and further each and everyone’s initiative.”

According to Simeon and Ratliff, partnered organizations include Sacramento Urban League, 100 Black Men of Sacramento and Alpha Academy at Cosumnes River College, which they noted, is an incomplete list.

“As we were going through this, we started seeing that it’s not just the mind of the young man,” said Ratliff .“It’s also working with the parents to get them a proper foundation so they [the students] can understand they can be a leader rather than a follower of people. And we can’t just do all this by ourselves, and we don’t want to compete with others — we want to collaborate.”

The  collaboration efforts with these community resources have supported HAWK Institute’s tutoring component as well as training and support for the parents of young black men in the community — which, according to Simeon, is vital to their success.

“We can only do so much in the classrooms and in the sessions,” said Simeon. “The real learning, the real extension of learning is when they go home and their parents are able to further what we’re teaching them, to help enforce that.”

HAWK Institute provides more than classroom learning and support. According to Simeon, enrichment and education field trips are also a part of the institute’s curriculum. One of the first field trips will be to the Sacramento Observer Newspaper.

HAWK Institute’s mission statement says that it supports equipping young black men with the tools they need to succeed.

“When they come to us, we’re about prevention. We see the statistics.  That’s why we all got together,” said Simeon. “We see the epidemic in the black community in terms of black males. And when they come to us, our whole thing is to almost reprogram them in the sense of ‘you can,’ not ‘you can’t.’”

HAWK Institute workshops are currently being held at City College’s Cultural Awareness Center. To find out more about the HAWK Institute, visit its website at http://hawki5.org/ and follow it on Facebook page, YouTube and Twitter.