President reflects on program for boys and young men from black communities that has marshaled over $1bn in three years, much of it from private sources

Barack Obama has described the My Brother’s Keeper challenge started under his administration as “something that I will be invested in for the rest of my life” as he begins to wrap up his presidency.

“This is just the beginning,” the outgoing president said. “We are going to keep these efforts going to invest in our young people, to break down barriers that keep them from getting ahead.”

Obama’s self-described “cradle to college and career” challenge launched in 2014 aspires to close some of the opportunity and achievement gaps faced by boys and young men of color, specifically in low-income black communities. My Brother’s Keeper emphasizes mentoring, summer employment for teens, gang violence intervention, and a variety of other locally designed programming aimed at addressing economic, educational, social and civic disparities.

The initiative has attracted a number of high-profile black celebrity endorsers across sports and entertainment, such as Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, and Will and Jada Smith.

The president appeared unconcerned with the prospect of his initiative being scrapped by an incoming Trump administration and encouraged a room full of MBK supporters and participants to stick to the program’s mission regardless of support from the White House or the government on Wednesday.

“Although it is important for us to poke and prod and push government at every level to make the investments that are necessary … we can’t wait for government to do it for us. We have to make sure that we are out there showing what works,” Obama said.

Rather than being a large-scale federal effort, MBK has worked to connect private philanthropy dollars with local government and nonprofit programs. Obama said the program had marshaled over $1bn dollars of support during its nearly three years in operation. According to a 2016 White House report MBK is in more than 250 communities in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington DC.

The challenge has led to local efforts like the “Mayor’s Mentoring Movement” in Boston and similar programs in Detroit, New York City and Los Angeles that match young men with adult mentors. It has also been a catalyst for new, less punitive school discipline schemes in cities like Houston and Miami.

In remarks introducing the president on Wednesday, Malachi Hernandez, a freshman at Northeastern University, said the program had helped him “overcome struggles, graduate from high school and become the first in my family to attend college”.

Black boys, teenagers and young adults in the US face startling disadvantages across many indicators as compared with their white peers. They are less likely to finish high school, less likely to attend and graduate college, more likely to be unemployed, and far more likely to become entangled with the criminal justice system.

According to the Sentencing Project criminal justice campaign group one in three black males born today will go to prison at some point based on current incarceration rates. The corresponding figure for white males is one in 17. Young black men also make up a highly disproportionate number of both victims and perpetrators of violent crimes, especially gun homicides.

MBK has encountered less opposition from conservatives than many of the president’s other programs and policies, in large part because of its emphasis on using private funds rather than federal money. The administration did manage to channel money from federal agencies such as the departments of labor and justice for specific job and criminal justice related projects, however.

The program has been criticised for its specific focus on boys and men. Shortly after the program’s launch in 2014 a collection of 1,000 women of color including activist Angela Davis and author Alice Walker signed a letter to Obama asking him to include women and girls.

Others have focused on what they describe as a flawed rhetoric that pathologizes black communities without paying proper attention to the history and broader social issues that fostered the pronounced racial gaps the program wishes to close. Frederick Harris, a professor of political science at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said in a 2015 report that MBK did not place enough focus on “deep structural issues” and that its goals “will fall short unless major policy changes that disrupt the barriers places before poor and working class minority youth are made”.

Obama noted on Wednesday that “it is as a consequence of neglect over generations that so many of these challenges exists”.

“We shouldn’t expect that we are going to solve these problems overnight. But we’ve got proof about what happens when you give folks a little love and you act on that love.”

Like most Obama-era White House initiatives, MBK faces a highly uncertain future under the forthcoming Trump administration.

On Tuesday, amid a series of high-profile visits to Trump Tower in Manhattan, the former Cleveland Browns running back and long-time racial justice advocate Jim Brown met with Trump along with Cleveland area pastor and former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis to discuss issues facing the black community.

Brown’s organization Amer-I-Can, founded in 1988, which focuses on some of the same areas as MBK, including education and violence prevention, was one of the topics they discussed.