It is hard to imagine the wise, articulate and charismatic Repa Mekha, today a community leader in the Twin Cities, as a troubled 20-something-year-old sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Yet on YouTube’s The Conversation With Al McFarlane, he admits bravely that his journey today as a life-changing community leader began in Milwaukee, where he made a series of bad decisions that fatefully led him to where he is today.
Today, Mekha leads Nexus Community Partners, whose $50 million grant trust fund will support Black wealth building and historic Black communities in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Centering on entrepreneurship, home ownership and education, the trust fund initiative launches in the first half of 2023. Nexus will also launch a program aimed at teaching communities ways of resting in a new and unconventional way.
“Both my parents transitioned to ancestor hood when I was young. And so, my 18-year-old sister raised us. But in that environment, the family males took to the streets, hustled, and did whatever we could to bring money in”, he says.
After joining the gang as a 13-year-old, Mekha was in a maximum security prison by the time he was twenty years old. He was sentenced to more than seven years. While locked up, Mekha got his GED.
With encouragement from an instructor who saw his potential, he was also able to overcome what he called “imposter syndrome” and study towards a college degree.
After a few classes and excelling in them, he soon discovered that his newfound love for learning was changing his perspectives on education and his life.
This was also around the same time he was transferred to a medium-security prison because of the college program offered.
After earning his associate degree while in prison, he transferred again, this time to a 4-year college. This opened doors for his career, starting with a position as an academic advisor and then eventually a position at Freeport West, where he was for more than 15 years.
While working at Freeport, Mekha had a series of epiphanies on his surroundings and those of the communities he was working in, which in many ways led to creation of Nexus Community Partners, where he is a CEO and has been for more than 15 years.
This decision to build an organization that centered itself on community and economic development led him to a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government with a focus on community development.
In his search for the link between community building and community development, he also found himself in Kenya, Africa. Using his insights from Harvard, he went to help a community partner organization grow.
His experiences in Africa taught him the value of culture, particularly in community building. The values in cultural communities contribute to how well these communities thrive.
“Culture is a knowledge system. Culture is a set of values. It is a way of knowing, a way of being, and scribing, governing, and guiding how we live our lives. And being in Africa and having that experience at a deep visceral level reassured me that there was something still here for me to do”, he said.
Today, Mekha serves as the CEO of Nexus Community Partners, which has for over 15 years developed a culture of restoring hope and dignity in some of the Twin Cities’ most vulnerable communities through grant-making, philanthropy, and community and economic development.
Nexus accomplishments includes a collaborative partnership following the killing of a Black man by a white police officer that made global news.
“After the murder of George Floyd and the uprising, as we know, large amounts of resources came into the Twin Cities area, and we were presented with an opportunity to partner with Black Visions Collective to transfer a significant amount of monies, millions, over to Nexus. And then, a core staff team developed a community grant-making committee that, in six months, got about $7.1 million out into the community in a short turnaround time”, Mekha said.
To learn more about Nexus Community Partners and the work they do, and any upcoming projects, be sure to visit their website at https://www.nexuscp.org
