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Pastor Greg Turk is on the verge of being able to wrap one of his dreams around a reality, using a new tool that has been added to his outreach kit at the inner-city All Peoples Christian Church.The Vision Youth initiative of World Vision is helping his church offer a hand and a healthy dose of hope to youth in a community steeped in deprivation.
That help is desperately needed, Pastor Greg says. In just one month last year, five young men died violently within a three-block radius of All Peoples. In a 10-block area around the church, 14 gangs battle for dominance. These boys and young men all display the suicidal tendencies of a community in despair—acted out in homicidal ways, he explains.“We don’t have drive-bys (shootings). We have walk-ups.” | |  |
| Vision Youth Outreach Workers (from left) Ben Eash,Yvonne Laudermill, Norma Altamirano, Dovema Franklin, and Warren Moore receive extensive, continuing training from World Vision and its partners. |
Prospects for girls aren’t much better. A growing percentage of the neighborhood represents first-generation Hispanic families. Without English or an education, they can look forward to working at fast-food restaurants or illegal sweatshops, where they might make a nickel for each garment they produce. Teen pregnancy, domestic violence, and a never-ending cycle of poverty await many.
Pastor Greg tells the story of a young gang member who told him he wanted to have the words “Game Over” tattooed on his eyelids, to impress his homies as they passed by the casket at his funeral. This young man, like so many in Los Angeles, fully expected to die young. The only life he knew was the violent life of the streets.Thanks to one pastor’s investment of time, energy, and faith, this young man has beaten heavy odds and not only survived to adulthood, but also found his niche helping to run a fund-raising soap enterprise that benefits outreach programs.
World Vision’s Response
World Vision has been working with Los Angeles church, faith-based, and community partners for more than 20 years to attack the root causes of poverty. Experience has shown that to break the cycle of poverty, our focus must be on children, and the Vision Youth initiative does just that. Vision Youth churches have the drive and the desire to serve these children and youth. Now they have valuable resources that can make the difference in the lives of children and families.
Walking Alongside Youth
 | | At the core of Vision Youth are Youth Outreach Workers (YOWs), compassionate adults from the community who know the challenges and issues faced by young people, and who are committed to providing a caring, stable influence in their lives. YOWs recruit and arrange training for volunteers who are willing to help carry the burden for these high-risk youth. And most importantly, they provide partner churches with a staff member who can devote his or her energies full time to youth outreach, a luxury few inner-city churches can afford. World Vision helps to pay YOW salaries and benefits for the first five years (on a descending scale) and provides training for partner churches on how to support Vision Youth and make it a sustainable, long-term agent of change. |
Education is foundational to Vision Youth, and a tutoring component provides academic help as well as a stable, caring relationship with an adult. | |
Vision Youth begins its journey with children when they are young, by matching struggling elementary school students with trained, adult tutors and mentors from partner churches and community organizations.These tutors provide not only academic help, but also emotional nurture. Sometimes, they are the only stable adult influence in these youngsters’ hard lives.
As young people mature, their needs change and YOWs take their ministry to parks, schools, juvenile detention halls, and the streets––wherever troubled youth are found. They provide strong role models and the influence of a caring adult who can help young people set goals for the future. They help them find the resources they need to follow through on those goals, whether it’s by providing discipleship, or a referral to an academic specialist, drug-treatment program, counseling, or job training. “To know the Gospel is to be in the middle of (youths’ struggles) and offer hope to these youngsters,” Pastor Greg says. “My hope is that we will connect with young people and join them in their journey of faith.”
Pastor Greg sees Vision Youth as a seed that when planted and nourished, will grow and spread hope and long-term change throughout the community. When young people grow into successful adults, they can share the hope they were given by becoming leaders who will reinforce and multiply the efforts of Vision Youth to build strong communities.
How You Can Help
Volunteers and YOWs provide young people with guidance and a caring relationship, which often is lacking in their lives, and the most important gift—hope.
• $30,000 will fund for one year, a full-time Youth Outreach Worker who will have a positive effect on the lives of approximately 100 children.
• $5,000 will fund outreach activities—such as mentoring and program development—for
100 high-risk young people.
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| Vision Youth Help provide tutoring, life skills training, and a caring relationship to high-risk youth. | | ||
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| The Storehouse Provide school supplies, clothes, toys, household goods and building supplies for strengthening families,schools and neighborhoods. | | ||
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| Tools for Transformation Help provide the organizational, planning and leadership tools to transform a neighborhood. | | ||
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Read about what is happening in Vision Youth programs around the country by clicking on the location name below. |
