National CARES Mentoring Movement
Our Mission and Vision
National CARES is dedicated to transforming the lives of highly under-resourced Black children by providing them with the psychosocial, academic and workforce-readiness support that they need to succeed in the 21st-century economy. While our focus is on African Americans, we turn away no child in need or qualified adult, and our programs can be adapted easily to other cultural contexts.
Our Mission and Vision
At CARES, we believe that transformation does not begin in the statehouses, but in the houses we live in. African Americans—the high and the humble—are longing for what is greatly needed but rarely stated: a safe place to heal our hurt, depression and self-denial—legacies of centuries of enslavement, Jim Crow practices and racism internalized over generations—that often prevent us from caring well for our- selves and our vulnerable young. Impoverished African American children have been long harmed and yet are expected to thrive without the whole body, mind and spirit support regularly offered to middle-class and affluent children when their lives are disrupted by violence and loss. We seek to provide our mentors with these same needed supports so they, in turn, will provide them to our youngsters.
We envision a nation in which all Black children are loved, have access to quality, culturally competent education and are supported by well-resourced families and communities living in harmony and guided by faith. We envision a world in which African American children and families are deeply rooted in mutual love and the history of Black people; and where they are respected for all that our foreparents withstood and contributed to enrich the United States and the world.
The mission of the National Cares Mentoring Movement is to secure and transform the lives of Black children by inspiring, recruiting and mobilizing masses of caring Black men and women to mentor and nourish them. Our national volunteer affiliate network connects adults to local youth-serving organizations. Our national group-mentoring programs focus on the emotional, social and academic development of our children and the wellness of the adults who parent, mentor and educate them.
