Our Mission
H2H targets a subset of unemployed, displaced workers, or workers in transition drawn from under-served, minority communities (the hood), to provide workforce training, job placement, and wrap-around services. Our goal is to disrupt illicit hood-earning and gun violence by equipping participants with marketable job skills for immediate hire, and advance trainings to broaden their career choices; moving them toward self-sustainability.
H2H Partnerships
In addition to ages 16+ drawn from inner-city neighborhoods, to increase our reach, H2H has broadened its outreach to include Protected and Sheltered Markets for the homeless, Restorative Justice for re-entry returning citizens, LGTBQ+ and victims of domestic violence to provide them with not only marketable job kills, but also ‘wrap-around’ services, including coaching and counseling to help them rise above current situations and employment challenges. We are inspiring these audiences toward achieving sustainable employment and motivating them toward achieving worker empowerment... realities most feel are unattainable. To recruit participants, H2H is partnering with established (501c-3) non-profits, community and faith-based organizations that work directly with these populations to provide not only employment and workforce skills training, but also the wrap-around social service resources needed to meet their interpersonal needs in order for them to take power over their lives while progressing towards more sustainable and safer lifestyles.
H2H is Firmly Focused on Uplifting the Underserved
How?
- By curbing increasing minority unemployment to uplift financial and social well- beings.
- By equipping resident populations with marketable employment or entrepreneurial skills to become self-sustaining, productive citizens.
- By disseminating information about programs for continuing and adult education subsidies, vocational training, employment requisites and job referrals.
- By providing community-based education and workforce training programs to prepare underserved minorities in inner-city communities for job readiness, career advancement and concrete alternatives to illicit street earning- drugs, car jacking, robbery and other violent crimes... primary contributors to gun violence.
- By collaborating with faith-based, restorative justice and other community-based organizations to leverage our strengths.
H2H Gun Violence Prevention Program
Unemployment and Gun Violence
Crime statistics prove there is an intrinsic link between high unemployment, being under-employed and lacking education, with the likelihood of committing gun violence or other crimes; or being a victim of a violent crime. BELTS ED NFP , H2H is dedicated to providing workforce training, street outreach, behavioral modification, restorative justice, case management and wrap-around services- mental health, drug addiction, residential assistance, etc., along with employment support services to those most vulnerable to combat gun violence and its collateral criminal conditions.
Dire Conditions
Gun violence is an epidemic plaguing the nation, and it is particularly acute in minority Black and Brown neighborhoods. According to the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, gun violence is the leading cause of death for Black males under the age of 55. Although they make up only 2% of the U.S. population, young Black males (ages 15 -34) account for 37% of all firearm homicide victims. Further, 35% of gun deaths are homicides. Chicago Police Department statistics note that in 2021, Chicago witnessed more homicides than any other major city in the U.S. , with the 797 homicides the most the city’s seen since 1996. There were 3,561 shooting incidents in Chicago in 2021.
Although the City of Chicago’s removal of tens of thousands of guns from the streets is appreciated, it is not the sole solution to the problem. The issue runs much deeper. A report by the Centers for Disease Control points to an association between “lack of employment opportunities and unemployment” and “intimate partner violence, sexual violence, [and] youth violence.” “Poverty is strongly associated with higher rates of victimization,” concludes a July 2021 brief from the Alliance for Safety and Justice, “and… being a crime victim can deeply impact the ability to attain employment or remain at work.”
H2H is Standing in the Gap!
H2H is combatting gun violence through workforce training, bridging the unemployed with employers and violence prevention intervention solutions. We are partnering with faith-based and like-focused community-based organizations and embedding directly in targeted neighborhoods plagued with high unemployment and gun violence to provide residents with better choices and opportunities for safer and sustainable futures for themselves, the family nucleus, and their future generations.