Street Priest hits South Florida & beyond
Just 19, barely past his freshman year at Lynn University, James Okina is already well-traveled, very savvy, and passionate about his work. In fact, he’s a man on a mission.
At 15, in his hometown of Calabar, Nigeria, a city not unlike Boca Raton with its greenery and coastal proximity, he founded a nonprofit called Street Priests designed to help the children living in the streets.
By the time he reached 17, Okina says he became obsessed with solving this problem on a global scale and began to study why, despite increasing efforts to address the issue, this problem is growing and persists worldwide.
An estimated 100-150 million children live on the streets around the world, while 250,000 die every week from disease and malnutrition, and 10 million are child slaves, according to Womenaid International.
In the U.S., almost 2.5 million kids under age 18 — that’s 1 in 30 — experience homelessness each year. In Palm Beach County alone, more than 4,400 children are counted as homeless, according to the county’s Homeless Coalition.
Kids living on the street are often victims of violence and crime, and later often fall prey to abuse and drug addiction. They are especially vulnerable to the human rights violations inherent in gangs, sexual exploitation, and abuse and neglect.
As an adolescent, Okina had been tempted into gang life. He is thankful he escaped — and it inspired him. “I rose above my own difficulties when my parents divorced when I was 8, and many people helped me along the way.” He remembers a cousin who came to stay where he lived with his father. Okina told NPR in 2017, “I saw that he led a more quiet, dignified life.”
Okina had already made international news by his late teens, as Street Priests drew attention, help, and funding. Trying to find a framework that would help the nonprofit reach children across different cultures and societies, he moved to South Florida to study at the Watson Institute at Lynn. Okina is part of an inaugural cohort of scholars from around the world studying to earn a degree in social entrepreneurship while working on issues they are passionate about.
“The first word that comes to mind when I think of James is unstoppable,” Tyler Tornaben, director of programs for the Watson Institute, said. “He is majoring in his mission every day.”
In his first year at Lynn, Okina met Isaac King, 23, who also feels driven to solve the worldwide crisis of homeless children.
King spent six months in the Dominican Republic after high school. The Ocala native learned Spanish and was drawn to the island’s street children, known as palomos — literally translated as “doves,” but in street slang, meaning “rascals.” King later spent a year in Brazil, working with the homeless “beach kids” of Rio de Janeiro.
At Lynn, joined in common cause, Okina and King set out on a self-proclaimed “audacious” trip back to the Dominican Republic to dive deeper into the street culture there.
Over a period of eight days last March, the two traveled the island, interviewing more than 60 kids, community members, police officers, and government officials for a documentary.
“The stories and plights of both the Haitian and Dominican children we met left a deep and burning desire in us to commit to this problem and create a long-lasting change in our world,” Okina said.
The two will travel to London this summer to present their findings at the Map the System Global Challenge, part of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School at Oxford University.
King calls his mission partner an inspiration.
“James is a leader in every sense of the word,” King said. “He embodies everything he talks about. When you hear his conviction, you know it comes from a place of compassion and empathy.”
In the fall, Okina is set to help tackle gun violence in Palm Beach County. Partnering with Angela Williams, founder of Mother’s Against Murderers Association in Rivera Beach, they hope to design a plan of action to work with kids in the community to interrupt the cycle of gun violence.
Even if he can’t solve all the world’s problems, it seems likely Okina will at least provide sparks of inspiration and fellowship in lending a hand. Engaging with kids is the first step. “The future won’t create itself. Young people must take an active role,” Okina said. “We are only 25 percent of the population, but we are 100 percent of the future.”