Creating Positive Opportunities for Youth in Hartford
Social entrepreneur and visionary leader Anthony G. Barrett has spent his career fueled by opportunities to drive change. MetroHartford Alliance Content Manager Nan Price spoke with Anthony about his involvement in the Hartford community and what he’s doing to make an impact.NAN PRICE: In addition to your work as Executive Director at the Wilson-Gray Youth and Family Center at the YMCA Greater Hartford, you support Hartford youth in several other ways.ANTHONY G. BARRETT: Right. I volunteer for several nonprofit boards, which helps me impart lessons learned along the way by sharing my talents and thoughts around supporting youth and families in the city.For the last five years, I’ve served on the Board of Hartford Camp Courant, a free summer camp for all youth in Hartford. I’m also on the Capital Community College Foundation Board and have been working on raising awareness and soliciting resources to support students in need.I also co-founded Girls for Technology with my wonderful wife, Sabrina Tucker-Barrett. The organization is doing phenomenal work advancing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pathways for girls.I launched the BoysCode initiative as a way to shift the narrative and show that we are more than just thugs, criminals, athletes, and rappers. We’re educated. We’re scholars, we’re doctors, we’re innovators. We’re brilliant! The BoysCode initiative focuses on how to bridge to the divide of the wealth gap in America through programs and provide access to areas where there aren’t enough young Black and Brown talents.I hope to continue to do things like this to enhance the vibrancy of our entrepreneurial community, which I think is needed more now than ever to activate economic mobility.NAN: You do a lot of work to shift the narrative about Hartford. How can we better tell our story?ANTHONY: Sometimes we don’t do a great job telling even half of what’s happening in Hartford or providing access to the information. Everyone needs to do their piece to change the narrative and share all the wonderful things about Hartford.We need to focus on publicizing all the activity—entrepreneurial, culture, arts—happening in Hartford and do a better job celebrating all the positivity.Read the complete interview at Innovation Destination Hartford.