Brooklynk Celebrates Ten Years of Making A Difference in Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park
A joint partnership between the Cities of Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park has helped countless young people over the last ten years ready themselves for the workforce. Brooklynk celebrates ten years this year.
Francis Allotey, a summer intern through the Brooklynk Program, works for the IT Department at the City of Brooklyn Park.
“Really we’re here to serve youth and young adults within our community,” said Cities of Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park Workforce Development Director Jolene Rotich. “That’s done through a variety of different programs, and really, at the heart of it, is connecting youth to meaningful work experiences, helping them to network, and then also to be able to help them as they’re thinking about their post-secondary career and post-secondary options in terms of education and what they would like to go into in terms of their job.”
Brooklynk offers summer internships through the cities and through its network of alumni and community partners. It also offers youth entrepreneurship workshops and soon it will offer biotech-specific training to meet the influx of those types of jobs in the northwest metro.
“At Brooklynk, we feel like it just doesn’t end with an internship. We want young people to know that they can go into careers that lead them to a bright future, and not just jobs that start and end at a certain point,” said Brooklynk Program Assistant Nyoka Ameyaw. “So, we feel that the alumni network is a very crucial part of our programming so that is why we invest so much not just in the summer internship program, but the continued programs that we have.”
Ameyaw is also helping to plan a ten-year anniversary celebration on November 21 at the Brooklyn Park Community Activity Center.
“We want to bring everybody together to celebrate this amazing milestone,” she said.
Francis Allotey is a Champlin Park Senior High School alumnus and a current college student studying computer science. He is in his fourth year as a Brooklynk intern.
“I work in the IT department at city hall in Brooklyn Park. I’ve done the last two years with community development, and then my third year was with finance,” he said. “This is something that helps with the future, you know, our generation. The future of the youth, building relationships, building networking, building resumes, helping build LinkedIns, too.”
“If we’re training the youth of today, they’re going to be the leaders of tomorrow,” said Rotich.
