Our Mission: Help For Those Who Are Less Fortunate         Throughout the course of my life as a native-born African American woman, I have seen my share of sorrows -- both in terms of my own sorrows, but also in terms of the sorrows of others.  One sad thing that I have noticed through it all is that many poor people, a disproportionate percentage of who are native-born African Americans do not have the knowledge to access support systems that includes not-for-profit legal assistance, knowledge about the need for life counseling and knowledge abut obtaining other essential services for themselves and their families. This lack of knowledge combined with a lack of a caring, culturally-sensitive support system very often leads to the social ills depicted on the previous page.  My Brother's Keeper has a solution for that.         The mission of My Brother's Keeper is to act as a holistic case management service by: 1) showing clients how to access essential governmental and government-financed, not-for-profit services, including attorneys; 2) help clients become self-empowered so that they can speak for themselves; 3) help clients to avoid or eliminate behaviors that will either prevent them from receiving essential services independently how empower themselves so they can defend adequately defend themselves; and 4) help clients form grassroots groups that can contact government agencies, politicans to solve problems that are peculiar to the clients' specific groups.         My Brother's Keeper believes that while case management services provides by well-established not-for-profit organizations have addressed the social ills that plague the African American community to som degree, that there is a greater injustice done by not-for-profit organizations that eclipses all the good they attempt to do:  the systematic lack of discussion for the original causes of racisms and retaliatory atmosphere that exists in not-for-profit atmospheres that discourage people of African descent from forming their own organizations to see to the ethnocentric needs of their clients.         My Brother's Keeper belives the old adage:  "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day."  Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."  Our holistic approach to case management services ensure that, once we have contacted and coordinated the providers of essential government and government-financed not-for-profit services to ensure that poor people who are not self-empowered become socially dynamic, they will no longer need to "live on their knees."         At My Brother's Keeper, our mission is simple:  to empower our clients to provide a better life for themselves, their families and their neighbors -- so that they can live on their feet like the powerful men and women they are truly meant to be.