Jamel

Foster care, homelessness and emergency shelters punctuated Jamel Oeser-Sweat’s youth. Fatherless since he was 4, Jamel was uprooted from the squalid South Bronx apartment he lived in with his mother and 2 brothers to avoid foster care. They ended up in a run-down homeless shelter known for its drug-dealing. They later moved to a housing project and shortly thereafter, Jamel’s mother was hospitalized with a chronic psychological illness. Jamel was put in a group home for boys and his two younger brothers were placed in foster care. It was more than a year before the family was reunited, and Jamel was then in the 8th grade.

Support for the Family

Introduced to SCAN in the early ‘90s, Jamel’s family was provided with counseling, extensive casework and SCAN companion programming designed to strengthen the family unit in the face of their overwhelming obstacles. Jamel joined SCAN’s first Manhattan After School Group and was provided with less traditional therapy – involvement in socialization groups and youth empowerment experiences emphasizing what ‘could be’.

He was soon a Peer Mentor with SCAN’s PS 121 Partnership, the predecessor to SCAN’s award-winning Reach for the Stars upward bound program. By 1994, at age 17, he was the first President of SCAN’s Youth Advisory Council, a founding member of SCAN’s East Harlem-based youth leadership project, “Somos El Futuro/We are the Future” and tutoring SCAN youth in Harlem.

Hitting his Stride

That same year, Jamel was a finalist in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and within months he received a full scholarship to NYU. He later received a full scholarship to St John’s University School of Law. His successes were chronicled in the New York Times.

Jamel has worked as a scientist conducting research in microbiology, and he has co-authored a text on role of DNA in criminal litigation. Jamel is currently practicing law, specializing in criminal law. Since 2002, Jamel has been a member of SCAN’s Board of Directors.