HUMA YOUTH PROGRAM
Sponsored by the Care First Community Investment (CFCI) and the Los Angeles County Justice Care and Opportunities Department, we are proud recepients of an award from the year 1 CFCI grant that has given us the opportunity to re-imagine after-school youth programs. Our Huma Resilience Project is an 8-week arts program that provides education and emotional literacy to transitional-age youth and leverages these tools to strongly assist in the prevention of incarceration. The program runs three times a year. 15 participants are enrolled per session and receive $50 stipends each class for attending. 80% of our staff are formerly incarcerated individuals who are professionally mentored and trained to give high level emotional literacy skills in incredibly intense situations and environments. The Huma Resilience Project employs the Community Resilience Model (CRM)®, a renowned neurologically informed trauma healing certification technique used globally from Nepal after the 2015 earthquake to Rwanda after the genocide. Huma staff combine the biological technique of CRM with our creative workshop, which results in an effervescent and effective method we pioneered called the “Huma Model.” One of the program facilitators, is a licensed CRM Specialist and CRM Teacher Trainer. He is 1 of 2 people with this level of certification in South Los Angeles. He also has lived experience of gang culture and incarceration in South Los Angeles.
Huma House is working with a very at-risk incarceration community and participants. Huma House works with a transitional home/foster shelter Sanctuary of Hope (SOH). We actively recruit from Big Dogg Gang Intervention & Violence Prevention, McCarty Church, and word of mouth from participants for our selected 45 spots per year. We identify youth who are in the highest need by assessing location, justice involvement, and ability to commit to 100% of the classes per course.
Huma Summer of 2022 was a 6-week program that used creativity as a powerful method to prevent incarceration of our youth in South Central Los Angeles. We invite 15 teens age 14-18 to participate in creative workshops every Wednesday from 2-4pm. The youth were given $25 dollar stipends for participating and we employed formerly incarcerated instructors to teach the workshops. Our program was an extension of Big Dogg Violence Prevention Gang Intervention curriculum which taught these same kids violence prevention techniques. Huma Summer builds upon this knowledge and showed how we could use creativity as a resource to manage pain, anger, and trauma that too often leads our teens to violence or situations that make them more susceptible for incarceration in over-policed areas.
-
Unique Approach
Our innovations are radically unlike anything that the private sector or public institutions have conjured. We pair violence prevention skills that are relevant in the streets with creative art and gardening workshops. This unique pairing results in high engagement and diversion away from incarceration
-
Lived Experience
We have the authenticity and authority to work in partnership with our community. The program is designed by the founders and mentors who have experienced incarceration or who intimately understand the experience growing up in an environment with difficult obstacles
-
In-depth Quality Care
Our mentors and volunteers provide consistency, stability, and individual care to each teen that comes through our program. We understand the full picture of each person’s situation when they enter and tailor the program to meet their interests
What we do
We provide programming for youth 14-18 years old to actively address violence that they encounter daily with powerful alternatives to integrate into their lives. The teens that we work with are on the verge of gang membership, are formerly incarcerated individuals who seek to rebuild their lives, and Transition Age Youth. We offer intensive socio-emotional support and creative interventions to help them learn how to address trauma and navigate the stressors that impact their wellbeing and their ability to maintain productive lives. We work with 2 different group homes in Los Angeles and Big Dogg Gang Intervention and Violence Prevention who connect us to the youth.
How it works
We meet once per week for a 6 week period to produce a group artwork or complete a gardening project together. We use lived experience and expertise of public defenders to design a program that teaches violence prevention skills that can be used in the streets. We integrate these lessons in our art therapy classes and gardening workshops to make the material approachable and relatable for teenagers. We also introduce teens to local entrepreneurs to expose them to positive experiences. Our mentors are from the South Central Los Angeles community and show a deep level of care. Activities include alternative art history lessons that highlight ethno-culturally sensitive narratives to champion black and brown modes of expression.