With so many obstacles young men face in Jackson and in the world today, one Jackson mom decided she was going to help give these boys a strong foundation at an early age when they were trying to identify who they wanted to be. Kae Washington started Godly Kings in Training (G-KIT) to equip young men with the tools to handle obstacles from both a natural and a spiritual perspective.
While the ministry is mainly young Black boys, it is not discriminatory and accepts young boys ages 10-15 of every color. Washington said they are here to serve not just the underserved communities but those underserved in their spiritual walk.
“We really focus on teaching Biblical foundational principles coupled with community building, conflict resolution techniques, decision making skills, and just trying to focus on the overall picture of a young male – not necessarily Black male,” Washington said. “Our main focus is starting at that place where children are really trying to identify who they are.”
The ministry started in 2016 almost naturally for Washington. She calls herself the “Mother Goose” in her neighborhood as about 10 boys would come to her house and play every day in the summer with her son, who is now 13, because they had a big backyard and a basketball hoop. She fed them physically and heard God tell her she needed to feed them spiritually as well.
After the launch of the program, Washington had a surgery that made her unable to continue for some time, but the group came back strong in 2019 right before covid hit. The pandemic soon shut them down. Washington relaunched G-KIT in March with the Black Boys Can Spring Break Camp.
“What we wanted to do was focus on the crisis that was going on in the City of Jackson, which is no secret to anybody that our Black males are mostly responsible for the crime and the murders going on in Jackson,” Washington said. “We decided we were not going to hide from that, and that we needed to face that head on. That is how the Black Boys Can Spring Break Camp evolved.”
The boys spent three days at the camp aimed at teaching them life skills, such as decision making and public speaking, to show them there is another way than what they may see around them. The camp also had the goal of keeping the boys off the streets and out of trouble during the school break.
While this was a big part of the year for G-KIT, the ministry also hosts events and activities on a monthly basis. Before covid shut it down in 2020, Washington hosted a movie in her backyard and a former inmate spoke about what the path would look like for the boys if they decided to go astray. She held a voting event to teach the boys how to vote when it became their time. Hinds County Circuit Clerk Zack Wallace provided sample ballots and stickers. The boys had the experience of standing in line and talked through the importance of your contribution despite the wait at the polls.
With relaunching this year, the monthly activities resumed. In April, the group, which consists of 25 boys, took a trip to the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium to attend Jackson State’s open football practice.
“The mindset behind that was really unity,” Washington said. “That day was really about having some fun and doing it in unity while getting some exposure to organizations in our community that are catalysts for change. Jackson State has really shown itself under the direction of Deion Sanders to be an organization that it is not just a football team, but they are a catalyst for change in our community. That was the message. We are going to have fun, but we want to show you their success right here in Jackson.”
The group wore their “Black Boys Can” t-shirts. Washington said the purpose of watching the practice was also to put it right in front of the boys to tell them that this is real and they can also go to college or play a sport or whatever they want to do.
“We want to make it real,” Washington said. “That is what that day was really about for them.”
This month, the activities will be a public speaking workshop to instill confidence in speaking and a senior service day, which will involve packing covid tests and a Daily Bread devotional book to be delivered to a senior living facility.
“It is really teaching them about humility and giving and serving,” Washington said.
Washington said she and her board, which consists of educators, doctors, ministers, and parents, pick which activities they will do each month based on the need. They ask questions like: What are we facing in our school systems? What are we facing in our homes? What are our children being exposed to?
“I think we all can get pretty comfortable with assuming what the need is, but I leverage their expertise in saying, ‘Okay, what do you think we need or what’s next?’,” Washington said.
While they are currently a month to month ministry, Washington is hoping to grow it into something more.
“We are in the process of looking for a building so we can eventually go day over day and offer an after school program that will offer not only tutelage for school but music lessons,” Washington said. The overarching goal for her ministry is to bring the young men to Christ, Washington said.
“Really the heart of this message of this ministry is that God is above everything. If you seek Him first, all these things should be added to you. It is going to bring you peace, joy, and unity for those times when life is going to get rough, and we want them to know that there is somewhere to go because suicide is at an all time high with our youth. That is the heart of this message- to raise young men up in a generation where we can reduce the amount of warfare and killing.
“It is not a white or a black thing, however, we are being realistic and not trying to say that we don’t see what is happening in our communities,” Washington said. “Most of it is coming from Black young males. We want everybody to know that we are for the souls of these young men. No matter what color you are, you are welcome into this ministry because that is our goal.”
For more information, visit https://www.g-kit.org/.
