This holiday season, we celebrate the progress we’ve made and the incredible community of friends and colleagues like you who make our work possible. Together, we have made meaningful strides toward creating opportunities, breaking barriers, and building brighter futures for boys and young men of color. Thank you for believing in COSEBOC and for being part of this journey.
Below are A Few Key Insights taken from COSEBOC Rite of Passage Retrospective Impact Evaluation, provided by Creative Research Solutions in March, 2024. You can read the entire report here.
Across the focus group discussions and survey responses, participants overwhelmingly praised the two COSEBOC Rites of Passage (ROP) programs, Sankofa Passages and Young Men’s Passages (YMP), and the individuals who were involved in their creation and implementation. During the focus groups, COSEBOC administrators, facilitators, and student alumni shared profound experiences and insights about their time in the Sankofa Passages and YMP programs.
The COSEBOC ROP programs’ activities and events engendered personal and academic growth for the BIPOC young men and created enduring interpersonal connections across the COSEBOC administrators, facilitators, and students. The authentic, creative, and intentional design and staffing of the two programs contributed to revitalized cultural identity and self-understanding for facilitators and students, and deeper connections to their peers and broader community.
- Community of Support and Caring. By providing safe spaces in which BIPOC youth and adults could come together for rituals, self-exploration, visioning, and scaffolded interpersonal
discussions, the COSEBOC ROP programs created a culture of caring, acceptance, honesty, commonality, and solidarity. - Relationship Development. Essential to personal growth and transformation are the formation and nurturing of relationships with one’s self, peers, family, and community. The COSEBOC
ROP programs formed brotherhoods of BIPOC youth and adults within schools, neighborhoods, regions, and across the country, with many relationships continuing over a decade later. - Cultural Identity and Healing. The COSEBOC ROP programs explored the revitalization of cultural identity in conjunction with healing, empowerment, and asset-focused action. Focus group participants noted how the programs shaped their connection to personal history and culture, empowered them to face and overcome challenges, and promoted reciprocal trust, commitment, optimism, and hope that they have carried forward in their lives.
- Academic Achievement. The COSEBOC ROP programs contributed to students’ academic and professional aspirations and outcomes. Specifically, the Sankofa Passages program was
described as positively influencing students’ post-secondary and professional aspirations, approach to learning and curiosity, interactions with teachers, academic engagement and achievement, behavior, attendance, and graduation rates.