PLATFORM : Parish Power

We have a “Hope in Youth” campaign. We want to divert $20 million a year for five years from city, state, federal, county and private sources to put together paid teams of workers, based in our congregations, wherever there are gang problems. Each team will have a youth outreach worker who will have a caseload of 25 youths at risk, and will lead them step-by-step from gang involvement to alternative education, or job training or drug rehabilitation. The second team member will work with parents. The third will be a parents-union organizer to empower parents to be involved in their children’s education. The congregations will support the teams to sponsor and mentor these young people on a one-on-one basis.

We want to position this campaign as a central part of Rebuild L.A. It gets religious leaders, parents, good people in our community involved in guiding, strengthening, nurturing our young people.