March 2024 R.E.B.U.I.L.D. Highlights

By Cheyenne Hughes, R.E.B.U.I.LD. Volunteer & Service Coordinator

As a 4th year Political Science major and being able to understand head on and be allowed the privilege to take courses that discuss the concepts of underprivileged communities and how this correlates with mass incarceration as well as a lack of opportunities available made me intrigued to see what type of work was being done to change this stigma and see what kind of work could be done and if I could bring my knowledge to talk about this concept. This is when I had researched and came across United Black Family Scholarship Foundation and saw that the founder himself was incarcerated and had first hand experience in this area which drew me to the organization. One main sector that UBFSF works with as a non-profit organization is the empowerment of incarcerated individuals and their astonishing work to address the economic problems that surround underprivileged communities. The main mission of UBFSF is to not only establish a system of “higher education” as it pertains to providing men and women directly impacted in underprivileged communities with knowledge and skills to allow them to reenter society and be able to thrive, but to also fight for change so this cycle of poverty and mass incarceration can be stopped.

The current project I am working on with UBFSF is the community grant and scholarship fund for individuals who are currently or have been formerly incarcerated. Our scholarship and community grants are an innovative program focused on providing these individuals with the opportunity to obtain postsecondary education, as well as allowing those incarcerated, which lack many resources necessary to succeed once brought back into the community, the opportunity to take high impact learning courses that offer training and consulting in nonprofit organizational management in effort to address socio economic challenges that stem directly from poverty and racism. Nonprofits are an excellent way and go very unnoticed when it comes to the notion of guiding and helping those who are incarcerated. Nonprofit organizations, like UBFSF, not only work directly with individuals who are incarcerated, and provide them with some of the necessary resources and skills to set them up for life outside of prison, but also work directly with the families and those who were once incarcerated. Nonprofits are requisite for fighting for change as well as providing individuals with basic needs that are considered human rights – yet are stripped and individuals are left to figure out how to survive on their own. “We have a list of human rights – right to food, right to shelter, right to health, right to education, many such items which are considered and accepted as a bill of rights. These are to be insured to people. So all nations, all societies try to do that”. – Muhammad Yunus.

Over the last 6 months working as an intern at United Black Family Scholarship Foundation has truly been an experience being able to work directly with those incarcerated, especially with my mentor and founder of the organization Ivan Kilgore, who has been directly impacted by the system of inequality, racism, and underprivileged communities. The idea that Ivan lacked many of the resources vital to be able to return to society and be able to thrive, yet took the initiative to not only change his life around, but to create an organization that wants to change the system and wants to provide those who need it the most and who are directly affected by the injustice and socioeconomic problems within communities is incredible.

One idea that I really love about working with Ivan and having him as a mentor is not only do I get to hear his experiences and understand what he has gone through and see the struggles and challenges he overcomes not only over the last few decades, but even on a day to day basis, but he also allows me to become a teacher to him. He listens, he takes into consideration my ideas and lets me speak about topics I feel need to be talked about. He takes mine as well as our other student interns ideas and he lets us have a voice, and lets us express ourselves and lets us provide him with knowledge that he might not have known about prior. I believe that everyone should consider working with a nonprofit and seeing the amazing work put into these organizations like UBFSF and be able to get hands-on experience. Like our incarcerated founder Ivan says, “you can never have enough boots on the ground when it comes to the work that goes into changing the system of underprivileged communities.”