The Moving Forward Podcast - Stories of Triumph with Dr. Valentina and Coach KJ

Kimberly Muktarian is a Senior Consultant at Save Our Sons in Raleigh, NC.   She was born and raised in South East Raleigh, NC.   She grew up in a large, loving, and supportive family.  Her great-grandmother is one of nine, and her grandmother is one of thirteen children. They enjoyed weekend and holiday family road trips.

 
In 2007, her brother’s arrest began to challenge her perception of how we are building strong black men. She recalls as early as her high school years, seeing it much harder for her male classmates to ask for help.  After witnessing their overall disinterest in school (skipping classes, dropping out) they began to seek other means of income.   As a special needs educator, she began to seek solutions for the vast number of young men falling through the systems and misdiagnosed.  She just kept thinking knowledge of the core of challenges, truth, could circumvent later challenges for people who did realize gaps within their systems of support. She echoes Harriett Tubman’s “I could have freed more slaves if they knew they were slaves.”

Today, Save Our Sons consists of victims and persons who will never be victims advocating for an end goal of parity, an understanding of core challenges and pathways to address obstacles that hinder achieving their goal.