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Meghan Sahli-Wells. Photo, Todd Johnson.
After announcing at last evening’s City Council meeting she had received a call from the White House, Mayor Meghan Sahli Wells said this morning she hopes to convene a meeting within a month to establish goals that reflect goals of President Obama’s latest initiative, My Brother’s Keeper.
The President said last month that he was challenging “all communities and tribal nations” to raise up young people by developing “a coherent cradle-to-college-to-career” strategy that encourages them to meet their life objectives.
When a White House staffer called Ms. Sahli Wells to invite her to join the program on behalf of Culver City, “I accepted the challenge,” she told the Council audience.
“This is in keeping with what I have been trying to do” since she was elected to the one-year rotating position last April. “The My Brother’s Keeper Challenge is in line particularly with the work that Culver City Unified has been doing with the Culver City Compact. The Compact was initiated last year, and it has many of the same goals.
“The Compact was a joint effort among the School District, community members, the Chamber of Commerce and the city,” Ms. Sahli Wells said.
The six goals of the My Brother’s Keeper Challenge are:
• Ensuring all children enter school cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally ready.
• Ensuring all children read at grade level by the third grade.
• Ensuring all youth graduate from high school.
• Ensuring all youth complete post-secondary education or training.
• Ensuring all youth out of school are employed.
• Ensuring all youth remain safe from violent crime.
Community leaders are encouraged to create the groundwork for a My Brother;s Keeper community in four steps:
1. Accept the President’s Challenge.
2. Convene a Local Action Summit to build a My Brother’s Keeper community.
3. Conduct a policy review and form recommendations for action
4. Launch a plan of action, next steps and a timetable for review.
The beauty of the My Brother’s Keeper Challenge, said Ms. Sahli Wells, is that “it happens very clearly within my own challenge that I set for Culver City when I became mayor: To make this the best city within the United States to raise children.
“Our focus on children,” she said, “can help make the entire community better. I am very excited about moving forward with this.”
According to the guidelines, Culver City is expected to hold a seminar with stakeholders from specified sections of the community within 45 days of signing up.
