Mission Graduation

Breaking the school-to-prison pipeline requires getting youth to graduation and into jobs with a future, entrepreneurism, college or an apprenticeship. We aim to blow the doors off graduation rates by engaging youth in positive hip hop, life skills, mentoring and a motivational app. featuring celebrity stories about overcoming adversity.

Hello, I’m Michele Simos , Co-founder and ED of The Dignity Institute. Our mission is to help disadvantaged youth stay in school, and graduate leveraging the power of positive hip hop and a social-emotional curric. With this foundation, they will have the soft skills, self-knowledge and confidence to  learn the hard skills needed to succeed in 21st C jobs.

Let me share a story about Jamani Jenkins, a disadvantaged youth from one of our programs who wants to be a pro basketball player. We applaud his big hoops dream, but he is failing High School.

If he gets frustrated and drops out, he will have a 60-70% chance of going to prison and no chance of getting into the NBA.  If he goes to prison, he will have a 50% chance of re-offending. Without a diploma and only a prison record in hand, his job choices are limited.

Before our program, Jamani was disengaged and dispirited. When we started our program, our Rap Artist coaxed him and his cohort out of their shells by building trust and helping them develop rhymes. He also educated them on hip hop culture, a positive lifestyle and a global phenomenon we use as an incentive and an educational tool.

Our hip hop and life skills pilot promises to lead to transformation. A body of work by Dr. Christopher Emdin at Columbia; Dr. Bettina Love, University of GA and other educators is growing.

People like Jamani change their trajectory by creating a DigSchool APP, which supports competitive cohorts, motivational videos, homework and more in a single location. Then, we’ll pilot a one-year program and be ready to scale with an online Train-The-Trainer program for teachers around the world. Are you ready to make a global impact? We are.

Problem: 60-70% of high school dropouts end up in prison. Half return to jail and become reoffenders. Upon release and with a prison record, they will be unable to secure a "good" job.

• The average dropout will earn $20,241, $10,386 less than a graduate and $36,424 less than someone with a bachelor’s degree.(US Census Bureau)
• Dropouts 18->24 years old are more than twice as likely as college graduates to live in poverty (Dept. of Ed.)
• Incarceration rates are 63x higher for dropouts 16->24 years old than college graduates (Northeastern University study)
• A dropout costs taxpayers ~$292,000 over a lifetime

Disadvantaged youth…

(1.) already engage in hip hop culture, a connection to self-identity;

(2.) need life skills (eg., listening, showing respect, resolving conflict), essential career-readiness skills;

(3.) will receive support mentoring, tutoring, behavioral health and cohort support, leading to…

increased self-confidence, healthy behaviors and better decision-making, which will increase the high school graduation rate.

Hip hop as a teaching tool and incentive for staying in school, will help youth learn about themselves and engage more easily with academic subjects. Their support systems will help connect them to their next step: entrepreneurship or apprenticeship programs; good entry-level jobs; or college.

Extensive research and results from youth organizations using the Arts to catapult academic success, we anticipate…

1. 100% graduation from high school

2. 100% no arrests

3. 85% placed in college, entrepreneurship program, apprenticeship or a good entry- level job

Helping teens graduate from school and connecting them with their next step will enable them to support themselves and serve as role models to family/friends. Society will benefit from their holding legitimate jobs, staying out of jail, paying taxes and consuming goods/services.

Initially, we propose a high school instructor-led class; however, we will build capacity using elearning and an app.

Track grades and graduation - 100% high school graduation rate

Track involvement with police - 100% no arrests

Track where teens go in their next step and how long they stay - 100% placement

We connect youth with technology via of a mobile app that provides graduation support and online learning. We would also like to develop a stress sensor. 

1. Grad Support App:

• 30-second motivational messages from celebrities and athletes
• social-emotional skillbuilding reminders
• repository for recording progress; homework due; their portfolio projects e.g., i.e., raps, art, dances, etc.
• one-click connection to positive visualizations, affirmations and meditations
• platform for competing with global cohorts

2. elearning: duplicate what is going on in our classes, so we can scale globally.

3. Sensor: alerting them to stress levels and allowing them to tap into deep supports

Our technology proposal tackles education, the lack of which leads to violence, poverty and suffering. We can easily involve the underserved youth we work with in this initiative, as we have ongoing afterschool teen programs.

We envision creating a user group that would be focused on helping create the solution. By doing this, they would practice dialogue skills, learn how the business world works, learn project management and get exposure to STEM concepts. Some of the underserved girls we work with have experience coding.  

Underserved youth will be able to access our solution online and/or download the app. We will use a donation-based approach and a sliding fee scale, the proceeds of which would provide a revenue stream for The Dignity Institute, so it can grow and evolve. 

We may have to secure donated cell phones for some communities, and we expect to work with a partner in that effort. If the internet is unavailable in some communities, we could send phones pre-installed with the app and the online learning. 

Our funding plan comes from six areas:

1. Individual donations

2.Corporate sponsorships

3. Alumni giving (as the organization grows)

4. Foundation support

5. Government grants

6. Sales of products provided by students and instructors (CDs, books, t-shirts, etc.)

Funding is always an ongoing challenge. That said, as we grow and are able to demonstrate outcomes, we believe the funding will take care of itself. 

In addition to consistent funding, another obstacle in developing countries and in countries that control communications may be accessibility to technology and access to the internet. 

Also, it will take some time to have the elearning translated into different languages, which is not a problem but rather a scaling issue.

Lastly, it may be challenging to track outcomes when we will not have direct access to members of our learning community. 

https://www.facebook.com/TDI.T7E

https://twitter.com/michelesimos?lang=en

http://www.thedignityinstitute.org

We keep youth in school and support them to graduation, so they reach their potential and contribute to society. Unfortunately, our nonprofit is underfunded, preventing has prevented rapid progress.

Dropping out is a serious issue with serious consequences for youth and society. 

Access to your technical experts and network will allow us to scale our solution rapidly and globally. We are skilled professionals, but we lack technical skills. 

Technology is the game changer and an app that will monitor stress levels; support, track and motivate youth; and include a mobile learning component will give us global reach and impact.

We are working with the following organizations:

1. Wells Fargo

2. The Boston Foundation

3. RSM

4. Charlestown Coalition (MGH Affiliate)

5. Zumix

6. Brookview House

7. Boston Center for Youth and Families

8. Huntington Y

9. Boys and Girls Clubs

Indirectly, Zumix, Artists for Humanity , Year Up, Boston Day & Evening Academy,