For the Sake of Children

Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans resides in one of the poorest areas of the city. For more than 65 years the church has been operating a child development center and has served many generations. Most of the children at the center live with just one parent who is between 16 and 26 years old.

“The clientele is in the low socioeconomic bracket,” says Rev. Thomas B. Brown Jr., senior minister of Union Bethel. “The majority of (the children) live in sub-standard living conditions because one or both parents are incarcerated.”

Witnessing the needs of this population of children on a daily basis and recognizing the urgency of breaking the cycle of incarceration, Union Bethel decided to start a mentoring program for children of prisoners. The church received its first round of funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year. Their program is called Yubija, which is a Liberian word that means “for the sake of children.”

“It was easy for us to identify the children of those who are incarcerated, and the child development center had great potential, so we thought we would pursue the program,” says Yvette R. Gordon, program manager of Yubija.

Most of the children at the child development center range in age from three months to four years. However, many of their siblings fall in the required age range for participating in Yubija, which is from 4 to 15 years old. This group of siblings comprises 25 percent to 35 percent of the children in Yubija.

“Parents were very receptive because they believe in us,” says Gordon. “We have a rapport and a relationship with them. The children that we mentor probably came through the day center at one time or another before. The parents want the help and the resources that we have to offer so that their children won’t be placed in the same dilemma that they are placed in. We have a contingency of people coming to us asking us can I enroll my child (because) my husband or my boyfriend, or his daddy is incarcerated.”

Union Bethel also has a good relationship with correctional institutions in the area where they receive children’s referrals. Although identifying the children for the Yubija program has been relatively easy, finding and maintaining volunteers has required more effort. Rev. Brown is responsible for recruiting congregations and volunteers for the program. He said being a minister has definitely helped with entrées into congregations. Yubija currently has 25 church partners from a variety of denominations including AME, United Methodist, Baptist, Church of God and Christ, and Roman Catholic. Seventy-five percent of volunteers come from these congregations and 25 percent from fraternal organizations such as the Masons and Eastern Stars.

Yubija partners with staff from the department of criminal justice at Southern University in Baton Rouge to train mentors. Their match specialist is a former employee of the district attorney’s office in New Orleans, where she worked on a similar mentoring program.

Summer 2005