How a Brooklyn nonprofit uses robotics, mentorship and mediation to reduce gun violence in NYC

One morning in 2016, Camara Jackson was walking to the Livonia Avenue station in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn when she heard gunfire. Kids heading to school fled, but no one seemed to know where the shots came from. She continued the rest of that walk as if things were normal, but when she got on the train, she stopped and thought.

“I realized, if we can’t walk in our own communities, if our young people are at the steps of their school and don’t know if they’re going to actually make it, it’s a problem,” she said. “How are we asking our young people to grow up and become doctors and lawyers, and they’re not able to safely play in the communities in which they reside?”

That sobering moment was the beginning of Jackson’s journey to found Elite Learners Inc., a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that provides violence-prevention programming and services focused on youth development, mentorship and education.

Elite Learners has since grown to about 47 full-time staff, 35 consultants and other partners. Their team is a mix of educators, social workers and “credible messengers” — including formerly incarcerated staff. These so-called violence interrupters leverage their relationships with the community to help de-escalate situations and identify, mentor and mediate conflict between people at risk of getting involved in violence.

The origin story

Jackson was raised in Brownsville, one of the neighborhoods now at the core of the nonprofit’s site-based programming. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and sociology at Virginia Wesleyan College, she returned to Brownsville to work in classrooms as a mentor and teacher, in the youth justice system and in nonprofit school programming. These less formal roles allowed her to work across Brooklyn and Harlem while managing her own health challenges with sickle cell disease, which causes fatigue, pain and infections.

Jackson cultivated skills in conflict mediation, mentorship and emotional support. She continued her school-based work but began thinking about how to increase her impact. In November 2016, she officially launched Elite Learners to give local youths new ways to stay safe and succeed. She was joined by a couple of other community members concerned about the same issues.

Building robots and reputation

As a new nonprofit with no funding or established reputation, the organization began by partnering with other groups already approved to work in schools. Its first educational program focused on robotics, with staff and students learning together. A goal was to build trust with schools and the community and establish a track record showing that participating students had better attendance and fewer lunchtime conflicts.

With those results in hand and a growing reputation, Elite Learners expanded its staff and started landing grants. Jackson reached out to schools in the area to ask whether there was a need for programs including STEM, sports or youth mentorship. She saw sports as a universal connector that also built discipline, teamwork and a long-term relationship with a coach — assets that can help empower young people and de-escalate conflicts before they turn violent. Elite Learners now offers mentorships through programming as diverse as double dutch, drama and martial arts.

The group’s core programs were initially based in central Brooklyn, and that’s where its two community centers are located, but it now works with schools across the city.

Under the nonprofit’s violence prevention arm, outreach workers support 10 to 15 youths each through regular check-ins, while violence interrupters work in schools, transit hubs and other community spaces. Jackson points to the way outreach workers, in particular, build trust with young people at risk of violence, in ways institutions with more focused missions often can’t.

“We thoroughly get to know their situations, their family members, what are the obstacles that may be preventing them from becoming successful,” she said.

One challenge Jackson has faced is being a woman leader in a largely male-dominated field of violence de-escalation. “It was a struggle — I wasn’t wanted in a lot of rooms that I wanted to enter,” Jackson said. “It was one of those situations where I brought my own chair, brought my table, brought my pen, brought my own pad, and I was able to use my own voice.”

Consistency, determination and building a support system — a strong body of people behind and with her — showed any hesitant folks that she and Elite Learners were here to stay, she said.

“They’re always able to decipher genuineness,” Jackson said. “Community-based organizations are a dime a dozen, but you’re able to tell the ones that are gonna give you all that they can give you and the folks that stay true to their word.”

Lessons for other entrepreneurs

Jackson says it’s important to learn to delegate early on. She wishes she knew more about what nonprofit leadership would ask of her.

“If early on I would’ve trained myself to not be in the field so much, then I would be better at it today,” she said. “I’m the CEO, but that’s a part of me. So I just wish early on I would have learned the balance of creating and then having others execute.”

Her advice for others looking to build trust in the community: understand that “you have to go through the bad to get to the good.”

As a nonprofit, when funding varies, so do the programs and services that may be offered. When Elite Learners first launched, it hosted bookbag, turkey and Christmas giveaway events. “You want to be able to, every year, deliver to those families that are counting on you,” Jackson said. But with short-term grants, that’s not always possible.

In those cases, it helps if community members know you well enough to know you’re doing your best, she said. Consistency is key, but if there’s a service you can no longer provide, try to compensate in another way to hold onto that trust. “Anytime you’re doing work that is serving the community, it comes with challenges,” Jackson said. “And you just have to continue to push forward.”