The CCNY Harlem Mentoring Association

The CCNY Harlem Mentoring Association is a student-directed, student-led organization that grew out of a collaboration among the Colin Powell Center, the CCNY Office of Student Affairs, and the Harlem Partnership, a local youth-development organization. 

The collaboration began in 2006 to connect at-risk middle and high school youth with CCNY student mentors and to develop the mentors' leadership skills. Until Fall 2008, the Harlem Partnership recruited the protégés from schools and neighborhoods across Central Harlem. Read the article.

Currently, the CCNY student mentoring associate draws the protégés, many of whom struggle with academic, behavioral, or emotional difficulties, from a wider pool of community organizations (see below). The Colin Powell Center has provided staffing for the project while the CCNY Office of Student Affairs has provided financial support.

Beginning in Fall 2008, CCNY student mentors began to assume leadership roles in the program, forming the CCNY Harlem Mentoring Association (HMA). The HMA now runs and coordinates the program, thus realizing the program's goal of developing student leadership and mentoring opportunities for years to come.  Most recently, the HMA formalized a new partnership with the Urban Scholars Program at CCNY in order to provide mentoring to youth at a local middle-school in Harlem.