Miami Gardens advocate Ruban Roberts works to help teens and families: ‘That’s my purpose’
The Miami Herald followed Founder & CEO Ruban Roberts into a Teen Talk session at Lindsey Hopkins Technical College in Overtown, where students pulled their chairs into a circle to talk about entrepreneurship, mental health, police relations, and money.
The profile traces how he got here. Born in the Bahamas, he first visited Miami at three years old, then moved to Overtown with his mother, Malois Everett. He was a computer science major at Barry University in the mid-1980s, headed for a career in tech, when a summer job with civil rights activist Georgia Jones Ayers in a last-chance program for juveniles changed his direction and he decided to become a therapist.
Teen Talk started four years before the story ran, built to give students at local schools an open space for the topics that matter to them. Roberts has worked with Miami-Dade County Public Schools Student Success Centers, where students behind on the credit hours they should have get a chance to catch up and accelerate into their proper grade.
"I have a charge to make sure that while I'm here in this space on earth, I impact people's lives in a positive way."Ruban Roberts, to the Miami Herald
The story also covers the HBCU tour his company organizes for teens, the mental health and wellness workshops he runs with the City of Miami, and how a TikTok-era attention span changes the way he talks with young people. It ran weeks before he received The Children's Trust Miami "Excellence in Advocacy" Award on April 11, 2024, recognizing his work with children and families.