Staff: Saladin-Malik Brown

Nelson Mandela is quoted as saying, “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children.” If this is so, I hope my past experiences working with youth as well as my future here at Friends of the Children will position me on the positive side of that judgment... Hello, my name is Saladin-Malik Brown, I was born in New York City but raised in Charleston, SC by my grandmother.

I returned to New York as a teenager, where I reunited with my mother. I attended Bronx Community College majoring in Human Services by day and working as a Security officer at a Children’s Hospital by night. It was there I found my passion for working with children and their families. Meeting, greeting and interacting with the sick and terminally ill children, sharing concepts of hope, while admiring their resiliency.

Some years later while living abroad in the Netherlands, I was offered an opportunity to work as an Activity Coordinator at a Refugee camp for boys and to coach a Traveling Dutch youth baseball team. I was responsible for teaching American sports and activities to the children. Baseball, American Football, favorite American childhood activities such as, Duck-Duck Goose, Red light Green light and many others in hopes of teaching teamwork, sportsmanship and competition. Most of the youth in the camp came from authoritarian and poverty-stricken societies, where freedom of expression was forbidden.

Upon returning to the states, I moved to Northern California in 2016 and eventually found employment working with Bay Area youth, through street outreach, counseling and coaching independent living skills with organizations such as Side by Side, Larkin Street Youth Services and Beyond Emancipation. When I’m not working, I enjoy spending time with my wife to be, her son and family, traveling, trying Bay Area restaurants and rooting for the NY Yankees.