Community MVP: Project Pneuma steers young boys toward better opportunities
BALTIMORE -- WJZ is recognizing Project Pneuma as one of the community's most valuable players because the non-profit organization focuses on steering young Black boys away from the pitfalls of life and toward better opportunities.
"My job is to make sure that I get to them before we're seeing them on different TV stations when it's not positive news," Damion Cooper told WJZ's Torrey Smith during a sit-down interview.
The organization started back in 2014. It's a social and emotional program for boys between the fourth grade and eighth grade, Cooper said.
The program exposes the boys to positive options.
"We deal with the population of young men that people are often running away from. Those who are falling off of the cliff academically conduct, suspensions, things like that. So our charge is to help them increase attendance and decrease suspension throughout the year."
The boys partner with incoming police recruits and the Baltimore Police Department and they bond together in the hopes of building trust in the community, Cooper said.
Cooper said he was shot at point-blank range when he was in college.
"After I got shot, I became that very angry young man who didn't know how to handle his emotions," he said.
Cooper said he didn't know how to get through life until he got help from other men. Now, he's trying to pay forward that life blessing.