good evening and welcome to alameda county is giving back program this evening we have a wonderful program scheduled we have three gentlemen here that are amazing as far as the programs that they do for our community and for the kids that are involved in the various community services with them i'd like to introduce them to you my name is sandra pitts johnson your host this is mr douglas stewart how are you sir wonderful to have you gentlemen here this program is going to be about giving back about programs that are offering services to the community to young people that are going to help them make a difference in actually the west african term from me a con tribe meaning that one must go back to their past and understand their culture their history their ancestry so that they can move  forward with that knowledge of self and with that understanding of who they are and where they come from understanding yourself of course you know means so much i believe for young people to be able to understand where they're been and hopefully where they're going can you tell us about yourself and how and what made you decide this and call for was something going to be worthwhile to our community sure i've been working as an education  community for about twenty years now i'm an artist writer poet musician and i'm just always found and appreciated making sure that they understand their history and their past in their present especially before slavery we have a vast and and exuberant past in history and culture of ourselves that a lot of people don't know  so i've dedicated a lot of my life for to becoming an afro poly just and in terms of of studying our culture and history and always happy to to work with youth and in our community and getting that understanding that is profound  transitional aid youth today i don't know if you've heard that term within alameda county but today is a term called transitional aid youth knows a youth between the ages of sixteen and twenty four typically coming through the foster care system  mental health system juvenile justice system except her and just in the community that are deemed maybe at risk and myself as a woman by the name of rachel bryant who's  a therapist with behavioral health care services and two young adults brianna williams and rashad evie who we worked with in creating this program where we are it was a ten ten week pilot program that we took to camp sweeney thank you lisa hill for allowing us to be there and all the probation of officers there but worked with ten to twelve outstanding young men for ten weeks providing this kind of culturally and rich curriculum really looking at oneself through media through music in particular hip hop the arts history except era and you know this really kind of shed some light on some of the issues that were addressed and faced with in our communities and at the world at large and so that's really how we got started just the few of us getting together with our organization and really saying and identifying the need for that through some health fairs that some of the youngsters have been to before and putting this program together and and getting some great results out of it and just looking forward to how we can continue that within our community as well as within the probation department mr lindsay it truly is a blessing to be able to have a program that i think a lot of people out there are familiar with security and the ability to have security how did your program get started sir started many years ago clear out middle school started out as caught in the act ced encourages students to be positive instead of negative most students are written they have negative norms that they develop in education and no one turns them around fort so in middle school i saw a notice in i discovered a program which i called reach acronym for reach was we directional education achieving career and honor and it taught the students to have positive norms instead of negative norms they could come in with a low g p a of under a one point zero g p a and within three to six weeks they would be at a three point zero g p a or higher would not traditional study but a new learning style in l s debt to reach program developed through debt in the security industry i just cited to take it a step further and go out and brought in find security officers that were just receiving the eight hour course which was basically powers to arrest so i upped it to forty hour course teaching them advanced training in retail commercial industrial executive protection and personal security vigilant pro security now is the landmark for any security officer that wants it x sales in security performance at any type of job retail commercial in the industry so currently be why thank goodness with them call this back a second term and with their with eager young men and women both young men and women not only taking the powers to a rest test but they're also learning fans techniques and security in all levels yes and we're talking about career yelling is that correct i both of you guys are looking at career building and knowledge building for young people how does your program work with the young person you want to to get involved in your program how would they do that with the b y facility meeka to coordinate or just a group of people disinterested i come in i sort of like interviewing myself and also das and we sit and talk to him to see if they are potential material for security so on come in test the waters in they are not sincere or serious these are the ones that you find they go to a small security companies and just past the powers to arrest and they give me uniforms in i'm out here and you see i'm in the uniform shirts out earrings in eight year necklaces around tennis shoes on and the public is not pleased with that there is a need a professional image to look at these young people would be why eager they dress for success in the security uniform they are confident once they finish the forty hour course that they can go to any security company and not only step in as a model security officer but also as a supervisor in this security field we will look at look at them on a scale from one to ten that would i see in the kids they are eager to learn and some of them was like well you know it's just a security well if you look at it that way you won't this is not the job for you we want you to take this job  it a career so security can be a career people think of it as a rent a cop bar something like that it's not really that it's is what you make and you get different levels of security you've got security guards security officer and a security professional now you can become a security guard and you get papped passed power to harass and and go out and work for a security company or you become a security officer to take it to  next level become a security professional people look at you different people look at you in a way where they give you more respect as a professional when you become a security professional that's wonderful t the idea of the three of you taking young people and wanting to make a difference in their lives you know yourself personally i know mr stewart you have a story and you can tell us the story about mr ste not just the company but the three of you you know have a story of your own to tale so who wants to take the first step and just telling the audience the young people that we have behind the camera you know that it took someone to have a vision it took someone to have a heart it took someone to really want to make a difference in young people so i step out on the place and some of the younge and i got in trouble one day going to the meal holding the puck would because i was thirsty i got off the truck and i went to the front of the meal to drink the water in a sit weiss only and i was like oh good clean water so when i was nine told me about the here just like the young man was talking about if you don't know your heritage if you haven't researches research your background your loss right now we all have a past history of royalty and when i found out about my name my heritage that my ancestors were from ireland and that my name means teacher home to our i grabbed a hold to it i ran with it i graduated last may nineteenth with three doctorate degrees currently hold a three doctors bachelor of science and masters in psychology and human services so it's sort of like a thing that i strive for but i really didn't know which w from skyline i want to book feel it just spread like wildfire and i saw how the children were in arrested in becoming a positive norm instead of the negative norm and this starts at home you don't start a school starts at home and once it starts spreading parents were calling me and asked me come into the schools talking to them and one parent said mr lindsey how many children do you have and this is a couple years ago i said maybe i have  three thousand and i hung in there forty five in the press because i had been in the school who disappeared for about twenty two years and then i retired this may march eighth this year for twenty five years in oakland school district but i didn't lose the passion for helping young people something that i feel is a need now in today's date and time once they get educated it shouldn't stop after high school it should continue on before day in the eleventh grade so when they get out they can go to a career some type of field that they know this successful in the top ten professions in the next ten years security that number three for the top ten profession so most people don't like saying and you can have a security guard job that's fine just mediocre men minimum wage punching a clock whatever but the other two steps bring you up to a higher plato and when they finish the training they know that number one safety is theirs if they're not safe they can't protect their property or the person that they are hired to protect so in my background in my experience i've learned to help others and in return it comes back to eat and they appreciate  teacher my history is a long one as many of us ancestry and ancestry and this knowledge is but you know i grew up i was born in sam until california and i grew up mainly on the peninsula up and down the peninsula my father worked for i b m and so we kind of moved around a lot and during those times and different places we lived i experienced a lot of prejudice and racism you know oftentimes being the one of the  only or few black kids in some of the schools i went to and some of the communities i lived in and so a lot of the history that i was shown and given in the schools and in these classes had nothing to do with me you know and they were always just negative you know in terms of like really giving that the whole truth about our complements our past and it just didn't sit right with me i just knew that there had to be something more to it yes so i was on a quest and i had some others around me my older brother and some other than my community that you know showed me the light so to speak you know went and took me to the library into the bookstores and showed me other fandoms and top me about the history of and achievements of a lot of african american and african brothers and sisters of the past and what we've accomplished and that really filled me with a lot of spirit brothers and sisters in our communities and just people around me in general so that's kind of a bit about my past but you know i went on to get my business degree i played professional tennis  of different things that you know people would look at me and not really know but really you know a lot of my passion was working with youth and folks in my community and really just exposing and giving them that now to self so to speak and teaching them about what sang copa is so i started several write the passage programs throughout oakland and alameda county and state of california for instance and i've written some books that you've been a musician and a lot of my life works and passion is around just kind of waking people up you know to the truth and just giving people universal understanding of consciousness about themselves and  the world around us and i think that global understanding about not only our culture but world culture then you know you break down some of these walls of ignorance and prejudice and racism and all that stuff and people are able to walk strong and tall with their head up knowing and having that sense of self and not letting anything be a shackle rather you know knowing that they are that light and they can carry that that torch you know and that they can carry that wisdom and understanding and the strength of their ancestors with them at all times and so that's you know some of the things that we try to bridge into the sand coppa sessions is really just empowerment bridging leadership we want our young people to be culture brokers is what we call them and so when they have this knowledge of self they can take back to the community whether you know they're black brown red or otherwise you know we just celebrated indigenous peoples day equal love just columbus day and you know a lot of people still don't know what that day means the history of our native brothers and sisters here in the americas or ancient mexico the blacks in ancient mexico there are more blacks or africans taken in mexico than there were in the united states so you know there's just a lot of information out there that we can walk and we can talk and we can bridge and we can really start to unite and build as a community caught across all lines the strength of what you're saying is so very powerful for the young people that are out there listening i'm hoping that the truth that is mean spoken here about wanting to make a difference and wanting to make a difference in your life is so important you three  young men are going to say mr lives surely surely surely is just profound to me as an older african american woman who feels that men in our community our men have to be strong and have to be the one that take the weight of making a difference with our young people mr dotson has a say anything and i must say to you his story as my baby brother is is a profound when he is that you know his brother he has to tell his story about our family and how all of us him including himself are trying to make differences i was born in oakland raised in berkeley and as i was coming up i was confused like some kids are now days i was confused what i really wanted to do what i would want to be i was a limousine driver truck driver i was a dishwasher i did all kinds of odd jobs and didn't really really know what i wanted to do until i got into the security business when i got a security b sister was juvenile hall my brothers do no harm my nephews and my nieces i'm like well ok wait a minute i'm going in hand with that so when i got in the security business i enjoyed it i enjoyed the type of work that i was doing at the time and i just stuck with it for all these years and you know does a lot of kids out there that really don't know what they want to do when they are when you are kids and if they need to search for  they need to try something try something that can actually make up your mind for you because them you have a lot of kids they well i don't know what i want to be trying something but you know when i before i got into the security business i used to talk to my sister she gave me a lot of positive views my sister is very smart she's very i mean she was very smart my brothers also but my sister she she took me to a level because all them work with here my brother work we do know how he worked he teaches martial arts mother brother was a regional manager for boys club of america so everybody worked well kids in the mine wow you know this is after staying in me so when i got into security i tried to be the best at what i can do and i whatever i do i want to be the best at it i want to dress nice i want to i want to groom myself nice i want to talk polite and and have a good personality it's almost like a personality trait in a train yourself to be the best person that you can be and be the best at what you do and my sister pretty much taught me that as we were know because you know her from her background is actually inspired me to try to do better in my life and whatever i do in my life and because of where the way she was raised in  to say mr lindsey you have a large part of that yeah yeah his respect for you and and how you went about and how you go about reaching out to young people really was his inspiration as well and he talks about how you really have helped him along the way in knowing what he needs to do both of the three of you and the two of you that have started programs that are making differences inspired those of you out there who might want to just give a little helping hand they are asking for sure that you would please donate so mr stewart can you please give the audience a address an e mail and a phone number and case any of you would like to donate to this program it is an all inspiring will burst program when it comes to one thing to make a difference i can get truly excited about programs that are going to stand out among the rest stand out and make a difference our young people need to see that there are people like you mr steward mr dotson and mr lindsey that our young people need to see the strength of the man the african american strong man who wants to make a difference in everybody's life not just one race now one being but everybody that's right and that's what the three of you are doing and i appreciate it so very much it's so very rare to have men like you in our community you see as an older lady i've seen the the young men that are coming up making babies you know i was the director of a royal park for thirty three years and they were telling them that they have to make a difference in their community is such a blessing so mr stewart will start with you please sir and giving the address and the phone number of how someone like yourself out there who sees the strength sees the power in the programs that are being offered that can want to donate five dollars well help hundred our help whatever you c this friday is one of our grand meetings between five thirty and eight o'clock and our phone number there is five one zero eight three four five nine nine zero and my email is the stuart that's the as in douglas members that want to get involved please drop by give us a call sheet me an email we're always looking for for other positive role models to to help and educators and people just in general to help build and grow with our youth and go for nine one three five nine nine and the office number is five one zero two hundred three zero zero seven and we're we're here to help the companies that need professional security we're here to help resident the need professional per troll in the areas where they feel unsafe we're here to train any current security officer to go to a next level of security pull professionalism office consist of classrooms workout rooms training rooms you have to be convinced that that's what you want to do is become a and one thing i heard is that these kids all they know to see is drug dealers in drug users and and they glorified drug dealers by the things that they haven't the money to make a jailhouse over fifty percent chance you could be six feet under so you've got to make that choice but nobody actually sold him the difference and we're here and i'm able to actually showed him a difference where we can get some successful people together to show the kids the difference in these two lifestyles gentlemen i would just feel that we have ahead and have time to talk about what you do and how you do it but the blessing is you do do it and you do it well we thank you so very much thank you so very much for everything that you do from my heart thank you and if there's anything i can ever do as