There are many problems in the inner-city but when it comes to crime and intergenerational incarceration, we believe economics play a large role in the negative factors. People in impoverished areas commit crimes as a way to acquire their version of “The American Dream”.  This may be a distorted view of the American Dream but It’s hard to tell a young person to stop selling drugs or involving themselves with gangs without offering a better option. Sadly enough, due to lack of jobs and opportunities, the streets have become a way of survival for many of them. So to combat this, one of our strategies is “Business activation to support social advocacy”. That is, to leverage small business partnerships to get our mentees trained and hired. Once they are hired, we continue to change the narratives by having life coaches help them overcome challenges that come from lack of professional experience and to ultimately become highly employable. These life coaches assist them along the way with clothes donated from high end fashion designers, food from local charities and other means to help them acquire the things they need to thrive in life so they won’t need the streets.

 

The thing that makes what we do really effective is that we have “Narrative Changers” that operate as life coaches/ mentors that lead young people in the right direction. We also have owners of small businesses that young people can relate to. The Truth is, there are several Government agencies and other organizations that have provided job opportunities and sometimes it’s effective and sometimes it isn’t. It’s not necessarily that people don’t want to work but there is a much more intrinsic dynamic affecting the turnout for these jobs. There is a disconnect between a young person in the streets and certain job opportunities. Sometimes they don’t have access to the information about the job or they may be too disconnected from the person presenting the information which creates disinterest in the job offer. Sometimes, the job isn’t interesting to them or they don’t want to work under leadership that they can’t relate to. Our experience has shown that a young person has turned down or ignored job opportunities only to work for a different company providing the exact same services. The difference was, the company that they chose to work for was owned by someone that their “O.G.” was connected to and they took the opportunity because it was presented by someone that they respected. Having a network of Narrative Changers that young people respect that’s connected to businesses that have leadership that the young person can relate to will be helpful. This type of network will provide a different sense of connection, respect or even pride. When a young person in the streets looks up to an O.G. or someone that they respect on that level, they are motivated to go in a direction that’s suggested by the person that they respect. That is why it is our goal to have Narrative Changer as life coaches and to increase our small business network. 

 

Small Business partners:

 

Grace Management & Construction

Jenesaisquoi Construction

Clean Works

Miss Carter’s Kitchen

A Tradition of Excellence