When Barry Cooper launched The B.R.O. Experience Foundation in 2020, he set out to create something he felt was missing for young Black and Brown boys in Brooklyn: a dedicated space for healing, emotional growth and brotherhood.
The organization — B.R.O. stands for Brothers Redefining Opportunity — was founded during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period Cooper said intensified crime, isolation and distrust among young people. A former dean and director of coaching at the Eagle Academy in Brownsville, Cooper had long worked with young men in schools and through institutions including the Department of Probation, where he fostered dialogue with Black and Brown youth whose concerns and struggles were often ignored.
“If you think about the genetic makeup of New York City, for the most part, it is tenement buildings or housing developments that make up most of our Black and Brown communities,” he said. “I always would have an issue with the way that young men were either seen or dealt with in their community, and then also how they were dealt with because they had a lot of apathy in schools. That just led me to start to create spaces for young men, not really realizing that I wanted to be a nonprofit leader, but I have seen the need to create space where young men can actually tap into that boyhood that is often buried.”
Cooper said he launched The B.R.O. Experience Foundation to create a space for mental healing, noting an increase in crime and distrust among young people during the pandemic.
“That is how we birthed The B.R.O. Experience Foundation,” he said. “I just really wanted it to be a utopia and also a healing space for young, Black and Brown boys to specifically come to and feel seen, heard, and supported and not judged based on the mistakes that they made, giving them the ability to learn their brain and their emotions and how both things work simultaneously as they’re navigating this new world for life.”
The B.R.O. Experience is built on a cognitive behavioral therapy-based model, offering Black and Latino young men in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville and Bushwick the opportunity to build emotional resilience and leadership skills through trauma-informed mentorship and healing programs.
The BRO Space Wellness Center, a 4,500-square-foot facility in Bedford-Stuyvesant, offers guided discussions, mentorship events, team-building activities and interactive workshops. The center fosters personal growth and genuine connections by encouraging participants to explore their identities, understand social dynamics and navigate emotional challenges with resilience through a blend of critical consciousness and cognitive behavioral therapy.
“Our nucleus, and what makes us unique, is that we do it through cognitive behavior therapy and critical consciousness. So we fuse forms of tools, from meditation, just reframing, and critical thinking, so that young men often learn how to emotionally regulate,” Cooper told Brooklyn Paper. “We believe that when you learn how to emotionally regulate, then you’re able to make decisions that are within your best interests, whether you’re eight, nine, 10 or 99. That is the modality that we often use to support the young men that we work with.”
Programs include the “BRO” Project, an immersive 12-month initiative for Black and Brown young men ages 18 to 24 who have been justice-impacted, have not graduated from high school or are disconnected from their communities; the “Right of Passage” program for young men ages 13 to 18; the “Little BRO” summer camp for elementary school students in third through fifth grade; “Behind the Bars,” a music-centered cognitive-behavioral group curriculum for middle and high school students; and the “Daddy and Me Project,” which supports young men on their fatherhood journey by enhancing parenting skills, using CBT practices to improve mental well-being and strengthening financial literacy and stability.
“When you look at what we do, we run the gamut of the school-to-prison pipeline conversation; understanding that we need to address the uphill battle of working with our young men before they get into crises, and then also triage a lot of the things that are happening today with our other programming,” Cooper said. “So that way, we actually start to filter our cultural system when it comes to working with our young men.”
In 2025, the organization supported about 250 young men through direct services. Leaders say the tools participants learn help them respond to obstacles and rejection in healthier ways.
“They are able to articulate how they feel, and they are able to deal with setbacks without, what young people will say crash out,” Cooper said.
The center also launched a digital platform designed to support the mental health and emotional well-being of young boys and men of color ages 13 and up. The BeWellBro.org website features articles, videos, therapy tools, youth-led storytelling and expert insights from BIPOC mental health professionals, offering support to young men who may be unable or uncomfortable visiting the center in person.
The organization’s work recently earned broader recognition. The B.R.O. Experience Foundation is one of five Brooklyn nonprofits selected this year to receive Brooklyn Org’s $100,000 “no strings attached” Spark Prize, awarded annually to organizations advancing equity and racial justice in the borough. The recipients will be honored at the 2026 Brooklyn Spark Breakfast on March 3 at Barclays Center.
Cooper said he was “super excited” to learn that The B.R.O. Experience Foundation was selected as a Spark Prize recipient, praising Brooklyn Org for its support over the years.
He said he hopes to change the landscape and the narrative for young Black and Brown youth.
“Because it’s all of our responsibility to make sure that young men of color specifically start to thrive, because they’re often on the front page of our newspapers, and they’re often in our subways, terrorizing folks, and they don’t need to be. It’s simply because they need a growth space,” Cooper said. “So when we all invest, we all actually change the nature and the texture of our community through the lens of Black and Brown young men.”
This story is part of a Brooklyn Paper series highlighting the winners of this year’s Spark Prize. This year’s recipients — named for Brooklyn Org’s mission to spark lasting social change in Brooklyn — are the Asiyah Women’s Center, Back Trans Femmes in the Arts (BTFA), the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), The B.R.O. Experience Foundation and YVote Brooklyn Org. They will be honored at the 2026 Brooklyn Spark Breakfast on March 3 at Barclays Center.
