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18-year-old Devon Brown, one of 20 boys from the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Baltimore who was chosen to attend the Baraka School in Kenya pic: Photo Courtesy
The Kenyan school which changed an American boy’s life
Devon Brown would have been just another statistic – one of the 486,900 black inmates in US state and federal prisons by the end of 2016.
But an academic year in Kenya during his seventh grade changed his life forever.
“Honestly it turned me into the man I am today. From a boy with limited options in inner-city Baltimore to a man who has now run an ice-cream company with revenues of $400,000 (£310,000) as its CEO,” he reflects.
18-year-old Devon Brown, one of 20 boys from the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Baltimore who was chosen to attend the Baraka School in Kenya, a two-year experimental boarding school that was supposed to separate the students from their city lives in hopes that they would focus on their education while in Africa.
Brown is one of the success stories from the program. Last spring, he graduated from the Academy for College and Career Exploration. Later this month, he will attend the Maryland Institute College of Art on a full scholarship from the Abell Foundation, which also sponsored the Boys of Baraka project. He plans to major in film production.
Brown was the kid preacher featured in the 2005 documentary The Boys of Baraka. Although the school closed after one year due to political unrest in Kenya, it altered his life, he said.
Mr Brown’s childhood had all the ingredients for failure.
Born on 9 January 1990 in East Baltimore, his late mother was addicted to heroin and cocaine while his father drank too much.
Outside their house, the harsh streets of Baltimore only compounded the situation as drug dealers, addicts, broken families and a crowded school system offered little hope for a better future.
Devon found renewed focus and a deeper faith in God after the year in Kenya. He finished his high school and later graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
His year away in Kenya, together with the release of a documentary titled Boys of Baraka in 2005, had raised his profile in Baltimore and he gave a lot of talks to various groups about his experience.
‘Life turned out pretty well’
During his college years he was asked to join the board of the Taharka Ice Cream Company.
Devon was a good brand ambassador for the company named after Taharka McCoy, a 25-year-old local mentor who was senselessly gunned down in January 2002.
The company’s goal was not just to turn a profit but to also inspire young entrepreneurs from the inner city.
After Devon graduated from college, he was promoted to become the CEO of the ice-cream company and he boasts of raising revenues from $100,000 per year to $400,000 while he was there.READ MORE
Source: https://www.bbc.com/
