Overcoming obstacles

One August weekend, first-year Build UP (Urban Prosperity) Ensley students gathered closely around a wall they built in Ensley, looking at what they chose to write on it as their biggest barrier to being successful — not only in their lives, but also in the workforce development model they chose to enroll in.

Whether the students, ages 14 to 18, used a rope, dug a hole, navigated around or broke through the wall with tools, they, with the assistance of academic and construction leaders who will be working closely with them, helped one another reach the other side of the wall. 

“Our goal was to see that the students understood that collectively, they can climb over any wall or obstacle that they are facing in life,” Build UP Program Director or “Principal” Ruben Morris said. 

Morris, who’s thrilled about the program’s progress over the past four months, said he hopes the “obstacle” experience will be an annual rite-of-passage for his Build UP students as they continue the 4- to 7-year program aimed at offering alternative education for Ensley students, some near the brink of dropping out of school.

“I think it is pretty important to provide an opportunity for kids in the long run who oftentimes don’t experience a lot of choice growing up in this community,” Morris said, adding that each of his students chose the program knowing the commitment ahead of them.

GIVING POWER TO PEOPLE

In the midst of entrepreneurial growth in Birmingham, Build UP is a new approach that may be the first of its kind in the country, founder and CEO Mark Martin said, and will hopefully be followed by similar Build UPs in other cities if successful. The program offers low-income or struggling youth the opportunity to learn career-ready skills. It focuses on paid apprenticeships in construction work and industry-aligned academic coursework, which includes an accredited private high school diploma and an associate’s degree through Lawson State Community College. 

“The potential and the hope and the belief that Ensley can be revitalized, in a way that’s authentic to the character and nature and history of Ensley, is really pervasive when you talk to people here,” Martin said.

Martin, who grew up in Alabama and recently graduated from Harvard’s Doctorate of Education Leadership program, said Build UP has been working to give power to the people of Ensley and aid an “authentic revitalization” by teaching a group of 22 high schoolers to become engaged civic leaders. 

Frank Dominick of Beat Builds, an Ensley-centric nonprofit that rebuilds blighted homes with the focus of neighborhood and community development, said Martin chose Ensley largely because of the goals and collaboration efforts of the Land Bank Authority, city planners and nonprofits like Beat Builds for the community’s revitalization.

“You want to take care of your kids. You want them to get a good education,” Dominick said.  “Their education is a critical component of the health of a community, so there has to be options and opportunities for families moving in.”

Dominick used to work for a national program called YouthBuild, which trained students who hadn’t completed high school in workforce development skills and earning their GEDs. He said what he “really appreciates so much about Build UP is it’s catching kids before they get to that point.” 

After Martin decided to launch the program in Ensley about a year ago, he moved his family to the city and spent much of the last year working with locals and researching what wasn’t working for some students in public school and how they could improve them in Build UP. He has since been gathering partners and staff for Build UP’s main components: rigorous, personalized academics to get kids back on grade-level; workforce training by industry experts; and paid work experience in which students rebuild blighted Ensley homes bought from the Land Bank Authority.

The Build UP students split their day between construction work and intensive education classes with a one-to-six teacher-student ratio, where students track their growth through an individualized computer program. The incentive to do the schoolwork, Martin said, is that the more students progress and spend time on academics, the more they can work on building homes and getting paid. 

As the students continue to finish rebuilding the homes, Martin said, they earn ownership of the homes for themselves and their families, some of whom may be homeless or living in rental homes in poor condition. 

Ownership is earned through a hybrid points system, similar to an organ donor recipient points system. After an equity design workshop in September, in which Martin said about half the students’ families participated, the parents voted on a system that allows both need and merit to be considered, prioritizing families in the most desperate housing situations and still rewarding the hardest workers who show up to school each day. 

“It’s about closing the wealth gap, about really impacting poverty at a very root cause level,” Martin said.

Toward the end of the program, the students will be made official landlords of the houses they built and will have a 0 percent mortgage for the first 10 years — an idea Martin said he got from Habitat for Humanity. The goal is for each and every student to learn the skills needed for ownership over the years and eventually be able to join the middle class.

Martin said he realizes the new Build UP model has the potential of scaring or rubbing some community members the wrong way, but he believes the school is giving the power back to the younger people in the community.  

“Build UP is important because we are really trying to create that pathway and freeway for our kids, if they finish our program, to either have a salary position with one of our Build UP partners or some sort of construction company, or they will be able to launch some sort of small business with our partnership with UAB with their small business incubator,” Ruben Morris said. 

LONG-TERM GROWTH

Build UP’s experiential schooling method aims to empower long-term growth in students, all of whom were struggling with traditional schooling for various reasons. 

For a long time, Dominick said BeatBuild and other organizations have been working to recreate the “vibrant Ensley community” that Dominick said existed before the steel plant shut down in the early 1970s, which led to people moving into the suburbs, leaving behind poverty. Build UP fits into their mission, he said.

“People want good things for their children, so to have that as part of our overall vision of revitalizing Ensley, that’s fantastic,” Dominick said.

Martin has also been working to raise $1 million for Build UP Ensley, which he said is actually going to be the most expensive private school in the state, but “one that any child can afford because of all the different funding streams put together.” Tuition for each student is $25,000 per year. “Keep in mind that a portion of that is essentially paid back out to them in the form of their educational stipends,” and a portion of the tuition is paid for through a combination of workforce development hours and other sources of scholarships, Martin said. 

The school’s courses also include career and leadership training and classes such as “Navigating Being Black in the South” and training in property management, which will be added in the future as the students progress through the program. Martin said they also have partnerships with UAB where students are offered resources for mental health and emotional needs.

“It’s important for students to be empowered to be the change that they want to see in the Ensley community,” Ruben Morris said. 

One of the workforce development leaders is Build UP Ensley staffer and independent contractor and designer Carlos Morris. He first began to work with the students during a summer boot camp program in which they were paid to help build the school they would occupy in the fall if they decided to transfer — which many did. 

“The students were very interested [in the work],” Carlos Morris said.

Carlos Morris works directly with the students and divides them into groups to work on different construction projects involving measurements, cutting devices and safety equipment and techniques. He will be assisting them in getting American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) certificates, which are recognized nationwide in carpentry jobs. 

By the end of the year, he and the students are hoping to have at least one house completed and another house underway. Even if the students don’t want to go on to be a contractor when they finish Build UP, Carlos Morris said, they can have the knowledge to fix parts of their own house. 

“We are getting ready for the real world,” Carlos Morris said. 

Recently, Ruben Morris said they gave students the option to open up checking accounts through Regions Bank so the students could get paid without losing any money through a check cashing service. They are also in the process of coordinating a trip to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. 

Ruben Morris said the end of the school year will culminate with taking the students to Washington, D.C., for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Build UP Ensley is currently looking for sponsors to fund the trip for the students. 

“I’m just really thankful for all the support we have gotten from the city of Birmingham, from District 9 [City Councilor] John Hilliard, Parks and Recreation [and] the mayor’s office. We are really appreciative for everyone who is trying to partner with us and believes in what we are trying to do,” Ruben Morris said.

Carlos Morris encourages parents and community members to come out to the site, see what they’re working on and support the students. To learn more about Build UP Ensley and how to support the program, go to buildup.work.