and with us today is council for unity founder robert de sena, along with sean dino johnson, director of program marketing, and deion johnson, who is a student in the program. thank you all for being here this afternoon. >> thank you for having us. >> pleasure to be here. >> there are a lot of people in a lot of communities here in new york city that would say you are doing god's work. you are focusing on young people in communities where there wasn't a lot of help, and doing so successfully. why do you think -- first of all, why don't you explain to the audience exactly what council of unity does? >> okay, well, council for unity is a program that is designed to meet the same needs in children that gangs do, but in a very healthy way. and in an educational system where the most important thing is promotion and graduation rates, the needs in kids are not met in classrooms like that. so, the council model has a curriculum that meets the child's need for a family, their need for safety, their need to be free from discrimination by coming together. bring everybody together, there's nobod