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Harlem Leader Helps Dads Change the Conversation

on Fatherhood
On select Saturday mornings in Harlem twice every five weeks or so
Hassan Ali Daniel orchestrates a minor miracle. He gets a group of
typical, predominately black men to come together and have an
atypical conversation.
They come from all walks of life. Some are doctors, lawyers, and
businessmen. Others have done stints in prison. Some wear hoodies,
baggy jeans, and share a love of sports and Hip-Hop music, but thats
not why theyre here.
Theyve come to talk about their babies. About being real men. Dads.
You have dads that are just starting out and dads who have been in
this for years and they exchange wisdom, Daniel says. Theyre not
having careless talks, but talks about the future so that the next man
can do that job.
Its not often you see any group of men black, white or otherwise
come together voluntarily to talk about childrearing, but since 2006,
thats exactly what has happened in Harlem thanks to Daniel, program
director of the Harlem Children Zones The Baby College parenting
program, and creator of, Daddys Day, a program within the program
designed to engage predominately black men preparing to become
fathers.
At Baby College, which was founded in 2000, parents are given a crash
course in parenting, learning the fundamentals of raising a healthy
baby often before their baby is even born. Topics include physical
health issues like immunizations and nutrition as well as the
importance of talking and reading to babies to stimulate brain
development, a point the programs founder, social activist Geoffrey
Canada, emphasized from the start.

Research shows that babies whose parents read and talk to them
more, even before theyre born, develop language skills faster and
have a larger vocabulary at a younger age than babies whose parents
do not, Daniel says. A lot of people from a lower socioeconomic
background are not taught to read and talk to their kids, so we
emphasize this to achieve better outcomes.

While most participating parents are open to the programs ideas on


better parenting, the topic of spanking and disciplining children is often
cause for debate. Baby College advocates healthy alternatives to
spanking and other forms of corporal punishment, a new-age cultural
shift many new parents, who themselves were spanked as children,
initially resist. But others like Jarod Johnson, 30, a father of two who
does maintenance work at Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn, heed
the programs advice.

Its not all about [spanking] your kids, he says. It just teaches kids
to solve their problems with hands and dealing with things
aggressively and thats not something I want my kids to learn.

The Baby College overall has been a popular and accredited program
from the start, but in 2006 before Daddy Days were created Harlem
Childrens Zone administrators noticed there werent many dads
participating.

The dads were interpreting this to be a womans program, just for


moms, says Daniel. When we passed out flyers, wed give them to
the moms. Our front desk would communicate with only the mom.
When paperwork needed to be filled out, they only turned to the mom.
We went on a campaign to change that to make it more dad-friendly.

Under Daniels leadership, attendance from dads rose from five or six
dads per cycle to about 30 or 40, he says.

We have a goal [that] 15 percent of our population will be dads, he


added. Weve always exceeded that.

Having run the program for almost 10 years now, Daniel says hes
learned as much from the dads with whom hes worked as they have

from him. One lesson is that the popular image of the callous,
deadbeat, predominately black father is largely an oversimplified myth.

Just because theyre not there doesnt mean they dont want to be
there, he says. There are tons of things as black men that affect their
ability to be there as well as their own pride, like joblessness and
homelessness.

Daniel himself says his passion for creating positive change comes
from seeing so many broken families when he was a child. He was
raised in Brooklyns Brownsville projects, which remains one of the
citys most crime-ridden neighborhoods, but was much worse during
the late 1980s and early 1990s of Daniels youth, when the nations
crack epidemic was at its peak.

I had uncles dying, and families being torn apart, he says. These
days we walk around with hand sanitizer and have little pillows for
when a kid falls. Our adventures [as kids] were playing in abandoned
buildings and jumping from one roof to another.

The harsh realities of Daniels upbringing are not reflected in his


positive ever-smiling demeanor. He himself is a married father of two
and pastor of New Day Mission Church.

I lived all my adolescent and teenage life serving in the church. I


served as choir director for several years.

It was Daniels dedication to helping others that led him to join the
mission of the Harlem Childrens Zone in 2006. His enthusiasm is
reflected in his staff members.
Most of us are parents ourselves, says Baby College Worker Tamisha
Grant, 27. Were looking at it on two different ends. When a parent
takes something personal, we can relate to that.

While the narrative on black fathers has been less than positive for
many years, Hassan is helping to change to conversation. Just seeing
men present, standing up, and united affects people in certain ways,
he says. You wont need as many police in our neighborhoods if we
empower our fathers to be fathers, our men to lead.
Daniel disciples like Johnson say thats exactly what he is doing for
them.
Ive come across a lot of people in my life and you dont get too many
people like Mr. Hassan, Johnson says of Daniel. Hes a very intelligent
brother thats trying to change something thats broken.

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