John Hope Bryant speaks to youth at B.E.S.T Academy in Atlanta, Georgia
With the possible exception of the founding of Operation HOPE itself some 16 years ago in South Central Los Angeles, immediately following the Rodney King Riots here, none of my life’s work has inspired me more, or feels more vitally important, and relevant in the challenging yet hope filled times ahead of us, than the “big idea” at Operation HOPE we now call 5 MILLION KIDS, or 5MK in HOPE short-hand (www.5MK.org).
5MK is nothing short of our bold, national strategy to “help break the back of the high-school drop-out epidemic in America,” and to inspire our youth, particularly our urban youth, to re-imagine their possibilities, to take their lives back, to empower themselves with options in life, and to realize their God given potential. My personal hero and HOPE global spokesman Ambassador Andrew Young once told me that you could never have a (silver rights) movement, without young people. Well, 5MK is that movement.
According to recent nationwide studies, the high school drop-out rate amongst all young people is 30% nationwide, and in urban, inner city and under-served communities it hovers between 50-75%. This is very troubling for the nation, and an economic death sentence for America’s under-served. My new friend Marguerite Kondracke, president and CEO of America’s Promise, said to me recently, “if we are not careful, the next group of underperforming assets we will have to deal with will be our children.”
Something must be done. We believe that children are dropping out of high school because they don’t see education as relevant to their future. We also believe that the best way to make education “relevant” to their future is to show children how to get rich, legally through financial literacy; the language of money, free enterprise capitalism, and ownership. For children with an unfortunate public record, no matter how smart they are may find it difficult in the short term to pass a standard background check at a major corporation. In such instances, the viable option for them may be “entrepreneurship.”
According to another mentor of mine, 5MK national co-chair Quincy Jones, it takes 20 years to change a culture. Well, over the past 20 years we have made dumb sexy. Over the next 20 years we must make smart sexy again.
The Five Million Kids Initiative is a focused and coordinated national effort to invest in America’s human capital – our youth and our families, in low-wealth communities – to re-brand education, and to “Make Smart Sexy” again.
5MK is co-chaired nationally by icons Quincy Jones and Ambassador Andrew Young, our first 5MK HOPE Corps Volunteer is U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral, and our first 5MK Community Co-Chairs are Reverend Dr. Cecil “Chip” Murray, the peace maker and legendary community builder who held Los Angeles together following the Rodney King Riots, and none other than Vice Admiral David Brewer, superintendent and chief for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in America.
5MK will be formally launched, on-the-ground in Los Angeles and in cities across America, early in 2009, but you can take peak at 5MK highlights beginning today. Track our progress, share your vision, get involved, organize a 5MK solution in your community, neighborhood or street, or simply make a 5MK Pledge of your own design, at www.5MK.org.
One person can make a difference. Be…that one person.
Onward with HOPE,
John Hope Bryant
Founder, Chairman and CEO
Operation HOPE
