Serving the proud city of...
New Orleans, Louisiana

Brought to you by the Office of
Mayor Mitch Landrieu

NOLA FOR LIFE SYMPOSIUM

Reducing Homicide and Advancing a Solution-focused Dialogue

presented by Mayor Mitch Landrieu & NOLA FOR LIFE as part of theMy Brother's Keeper Community Challenge

On December 8-9, 2014, over 300 participants came together for the NOLA FOR LIFE Symposium, a two-day dialogue designed to explore the broader issues contributing to the homicide rate in New Orleans. Leaders from neighborhood organizations, social service agencies, the local business community, philanthropic, education and faith-based institutions joined local and national experts to take on the hard-hitting issues that contribute to violence in our community.

The City will invite participants from last year's NOLA FOR LIFE Symposium back to an event this spring to present progress reports on solutions proposed during the December 2014 symposium. The exact details of the event will be presented at a later date.

The Solutions

In small groups focused on Education, Race and Equity, the Criminal Justice System and Income Inequality, participants developed recommendations for citizen-led actionable solutions to achieve the goals of President Obama's My Brother's Keeper (MBK) initiative. The goals of MBK include employing all youth out of school and all of our young people being safe from violent crime.

In the coming months, the New Orleans community seeks to explore the following recommendations:

EDUCATION

  • Advance policy advocacy agenda
  • Convene series of literacy conversations in 2015
  • Hold a youth-led summit on issues of restorative approaches
  • Campaign to organize people advocating for transportation
  • Educate about social emotional learning

RACE & EQUITY

  • Identify leaders that can facilitate conversations
  • Share more positive stories/images of Black males through media
  • Deconstruct and rebuild policy
  • Promote civic engagement/advocacy

CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

  • Create a mobile app to provide information on the criminal justice system
  • Assist community organizations to acquire blighted properties to develop transitional re-entry housing
  • Develop community-led partnerships (e.g. Street Ambassadorship initiative)
  • Create a Resilience Model for early intervention for children
  • Hold community-led teach-ins with community advocates and criminal justice actors

INCOME INEQUALITY

  • Promote financial literacy and create intergenerational curriculum
  • Advocate to create vocational and educational opportunities in correctional facilities
  • Create a worker collaborative to promote shared entrepreneurship among African Americans
  • Create a speaker series to promote positive images of black men
  • Organize for reform of labor laws that negatively impact African Americans