Leadership Show 1_2009

The Divine providence of God through the Holy Spirit sees beyond our human consciousness to places we have yet to imagine.

ReEngage, Inc.

As a direct result of my passion for those who have fallen prey to the sin of fornication and to those who believe that marriage is no longer relevant to God I have founded a non-profit organization entitled ReEngage, Inc. ReEngage, Inc. is an organization made up of concerned parents, educators, health professionals, clergy, and citizens who want to begin the process of repairing these broken relationships between not only fathers and their children but mothers and fathers. Our mission is to foster the reconnection of the absentee father with their children through outreach and counseling, education, and preparation.

Absentee fathers have become an American epidemic that reaches across racial, economic, and ethnic lines. We have irrefutable evidence that most of our other social problems in the black community stems from this phenomenon. Last year we set a record for births in America with 4.3 million, of those 4.3 million births 40% were to unmarried women. As we become a nation of more illegitimate births, separations, and divorces more and more of our children will face the real possibility of growing up without the financial, spiritual and emotional guidance of their fathers and this we must not allow to happen.

Let us be clear, the experiment of women raising children alone and the belief that fathers in the lives of their children is overrated has failed and failed miserably. The evidence is clear that children being raised by single mothers are not doing as well as children being raised by both parents.

Here are just a few examples of how horrific the results have been for our children.

* Children from fatherless homes are five times more likely to be poor, and ten times more likely to be extremely poor.

* Seventy percent of juveniles in reform school and long term prison inmates come from fatherless homes.

* Children from fatherless homes are twice as likely to be high school drop outs.

* Fatherless children have more emotional and behavioral problems.

* Girls from fatherless homes are three times as likely to be unwed teenage mothers. Adolescents in mother-only families are more likely to be sexually active, and daughters are more likely to become single-parent mothers.

* Boys from fatherless homes have a higher incidence of unemployment, incarceration, and noninvolvement with their own children.

* Seventy-one percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.

* Seventy-five percent of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes.

While these numbers appear as figures on a page they are actually people, primarily children who are suffering. We should begin to address the problems of crime, drug and alcohol abuse, educational failure, and teen pregnancy in a holistic way. For decades public policy has treated the black family as three separate entities. We have focused on the poor underprivileged children, the strong matriarchal black mothers, and the irresponsible black fathers. We must begin to reestablish and reappraise the role of fathers in the family structure. We should craft policies and strategies that treat the black family as a unit. We should direct our public policy to reinforce the institution of marriage and discontinue policies that reduces or diminishes the status of the father. Many of our policies have had the unintended consequences of rewarding behavior that is detrimental to the formation of families.

We must begin to reestablish and encourage the belief in marriage in the black community not purely for religious reasons, but for social and economic reasons as well. We cannot truly discuss the fatherless child without including a discussion on the state of marriage in the black community. As we begin to heal the relationships between the father and their children we must also begin to heal the relationship between male and female in the black community. Many women today view the role of the black male as that of surrogate parent, merely there to provide DNA for the creation of the child.

For decades we have become paralyzed by the argument of why we are in the state we are in. There are those who blame it on slavery, racism, and economics. While others say it is a moral or cultural issue. The time has come to stop focusing on the why and begin to focus on the what, as in what are we going to do about it? Regardless of whether the government or the larger society chooses to support our efforts the black community can no longer be excused for refusing to act. These are our children that are being deserted. I can’t tell you the times I have gone to meet with young black men and listened to their anger and their pain towards their fathers. They have every right to be angry you see when they were younger and needed a father to protect, support, and encourage them no one was there. Not only was there no one there but no one came and no one seemed to care.

Our mission is the following: To foster the reconnection of the black male with their children through outreach and counseling, education, and preparation.

We have the following goals:

1. Reduce the number of black children growing up in single mother households by reengaging the black male back into the family dynamics.

2. Educate black children to the consequences of having children without fathers and the benefits of marriage.

3. Work with established community and government entities to provide the needed services for these reengaged black fathers.

4. Provide counseling and support groups for emotionally damaged black fathers.

5. To prepare fathers for the reintegration process through parenting training, anger management, and ensuring their lifelong commitment in the child’s life. Our primary concern is the welfare of the child.

6. To provide mediation when possible between mothers and fathers to ensure the smooth integration of the father back into the child’s life.

7. Become a community clearinghouse for the qualified available research and programs designed to combat this epidemic.

8. Begin to utilize the steps created from the conference co-sponsored with area organizations and educators, clergy, and social service professionals.

We can no longer sit idly by while our children are being deprived and our nation is losing generation after generation of children. Black children just like all other children deserve and require a loving and caring relationship with their fathers, will you help us to make that day a reality for them.