83 RD GRAND CHAPTER MEETING: GUIDE RIGHT PROGRAMS
Guide Right Hashtag Campaigns
By Damon Peebles
W hat used to be known as the pound symbol or number sign for those old enough to remem- ber rotary phones, is now referred as a hashtag, and with the rise of social media in this technological era, have fast become a popular way to categorize content along the various networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Many people, companies, groups, and organizations utilize them to shape messages or campaigns they are trying to relay to the masses of consumers. In recent years, Kappa Alpha Psi’s National Guide Right Committee has also used this tool as a call for action among the many chapters, to showcase the achievements within its programs, virally.
#WhyKappasMentor, and #IamAchieve- ment are the brainchild of L’Mani Viney, Executive Director of the Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation, who, as a member of the National Guide Right Committee, a few years ago, came up with both. While #WhyKappasMentor highlights through videos and photos, the role members have in working with youth, #Iam- Achievment is told from the perspective of the Kappa League members who are impacted. Viney said it was in 2014, when the committee launched #WhyKappasMen- tor. “We had just began our working closely together with the White House initiative of educational excellence of African-Americans; that was led by Brother David Johns (Executive Direc- tor of the White House Initiative on
Educational Excellence for African Americans). David reached out to me, and said for National Mentoring Month, he wanted to do a town hall on mentoring,” he said. Viney replied, “What we need to do is utilize social media to change the nar- rative…showing how just Black men are involved in mentoring, because you know, the assumption is, we’re not there. The false assumption is, that Black men don’t come out to mentor their own, so we really wanted to really just to destroy that myth; that we are out there.” Viney also said they wanted to utilize the hashtag as a recruiting tool to encourage more men of color, whether they were in the fraternity or not, to
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