March 28, 2025
Our Children Learn has donated over 50,000 books to elementary faculty college students and raised $250,000 to fund literacy initiatives nationwide.
Jahmal Lake is the founding father of the Black-led nonprofit Our Children Learn. What began as a nonprofit to get extra books within the arms of youngsters, primarily children of coloration, changed into a mission to shut the literacy hole.
There’s at the moment a literacy disaster occurring nationwide that’s disproportionately affecting college students of coloration. A latest report from the Nationwide Evaluation of Schooling (NAEP) revealed that not even half of fourth graders within the U.S. (33%) scored at or above a proficient stage in studying. One other means to take a look at the numbers is that greater than half of fourth-grade college students learn under a talented stage.
For marginalized college students, these numbers are a lot worse. Solely 17% of Black college students, 11% of scholars with disabilities, and 10% of multilingual learners can learn proficiently by fourth grade.
Lake witnessed these statistics firsthand throughout the first 9 months of programming along with his nonprofit.
“We began seeing that the youngsters could be enthusiastic about grabbing the e-book, however they couldn’t learn it, so they only pushed it to the facet,” Lake, who additionally serves as government director of Our Children Learn, informed BLACK ENTERPRISE.
Giving a baby a e-book was not sufficient, prompting Lake to alter the nonprofit’s mission to stimulate an curiosity in studying to fight the literacy hole. Now, the Black-led nonprofit is two-fold. Lake and his workforce are offering books by means of its various e-book donation program to underserved communities. The nonprofit additionally supplies mentorship and encouragement and fosters a love of studying by means of its Distant Studying Buddy program.
The Affect of Black-Led Our Children Learn
Below Lake’s management, Our Children Learn has donated over 50,000 books to elementary faculty college students and raised $250,000 to fund literacy initiatives nationwide. He has launched the primary free various kids’s bookstore at Eastpoint Mall in Baltimore. Lake has partnered with main corporations, together with Microsoft, Hallmark, Dell, Nike, and Amazon.
However in case you ask Lake his most important flex and an important accomplishment, he says it’s getting college students excited to learn.
“The primary encouraging statistic is that the kids are signing up for a number of classes, indicating they’re excited,” says Lake. “We’re additionally getting studies from lecturers that college students who wouldn’t be the youngsters taking part in studying classes at the moment are partaking.”
One other measurement for Lake is the pre-and post-surveys from taking part college students. Beforehand, Lake stated about 20-30% of scholars love studying. On the finish of this system, it’s nearer to 80%.
Our Children Learn Plans To Incorporate Synthetic Intelligence To Train Children
Lake brings over 20 years of software program engineering experience to his purpose of combatting the literacy hole. In 1998, he launched ImagineAccess, a nonprofit based mostly in New York Metropolis that launched college students of coloration to coding, graphic design, and storytelling earlier than launching Our Children Learn in 2019. With Our Children Learn, he’s honoring his late mom, Dr. Obiagele Lake, and her legacy as an educator and social justice advocate.
For Lake, synthetic intelligence and expertise are essentially the most highly effective instruments for instructing kids to learn. Our Children Learn has partnered with corporations to make the expertise accessible as a result of the opposite barrier for households is price.
“We’re shifting to offering these assets without spending a dime as a result of our purpose is entry for all. We’re not going to cost for any of this,” Lake stated.
Literacy for Lake just isn’t a privilege. It’s a proper. The long-term penalties of low literacy are dire, resulting in greater dropout charges, restricted financial alternatives, and elevated incarceration charges.
His group is all the time in search of volunteers to learn to kids and settle for donations to offer essential assets to underserved college students.
“We will’t look forward to the federal government or faculty methods. We will’t wait for fogeys of youngsters struggling to learn. The world is evolving. As a world group, now we have to step up and take duty for the literacy drawback.”
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