By KC Hardin | Project Member
It may be just past the mid-year point, but we already have a lot to report.
Most importantly, Esperanza has completed Phase I of our five year plan! As you might recall, we intially set out with four goals:
1. Demobilize the three gangs operating in San Felipe, Casco Viejo (Intervention)
2. Provide their former members with real opportunities to integrate into formal society (Integration)
3. Create a lasting prevention capability with the most promising graduates to prevent the next generation from becoming gang involved (Prevention)
4. Systematizing Esperanza's methodology so that it can be replicated (Replication)
In April we completed the intervention with the third and final gang operating in San Felipe (Las Terazzas) and in June we received the Monitoring and Evaluation report from Vitalitas Consulting and the results strongly indicate that, with completion of this third and final group, Esperanza has succeeded in its first goal and completed Phase I.
Determining whether a gang is operating as a gang or not is as much art as it is science. To do this, we use a diagnostic took created by Vitalitas Consulting that asks key questions of the participants, the surrounding community and the police before and after each intervention regarding their perceptions of safety and gang activity. The survey also looks at quantitative and qualitative factors surrounding the individual participants' behaviours as well as those of the entire group.
Again, the results at the community and group levels were impressive. In just six months the percentage of residents and police who answered "yes" to the question of whether a gang was operating on the street decreased by over 50%, indicating a major improvement in community perception following the program.
At an individual level, we look to see whether certain worrisome behaviors have decreased (we call them risk factors) and other positive behaviours have increased (protection factors).
One of the most important protection factors is formal employment. Eighty percent of the graduates of the third group either obtained formal employment or started their own businesses. Other important protection factors such as social capital (the measurement of an individual's personal network) and participation in community activities increased, while key risk factors showed significant declines, such as arrests and victimization. (The full Vitalitas report is attached.)
All of these are good signs, but in reality, they are just the beginning. Changing indiviual behavours to the point where former gang members can permanantly integrate into formal society isn't quick or easy. The Vitalitas survey is a snap shot of a moment in time, but we know that without extensive ongoing support, all of those changes can be lost quickly. (In fact, a number of the last group lost their jobs following the Vitalitas survey and are now working with Esperanza's counselors to get back in the saddle).
The total cost of the first phase was approximately $160,000. It may sound like a lot, but when you consider that incarceration of the graduates for even one year would have cost at least twice that amount it begins to look like a bargain!
With the ex members of the three former San Felipe gangs now focused on changing their lives for the better, we turn to Experanza's second phase (Integration), which is ensuring that the former members gains are permanant and they don't revert back to old habits. We don't expect this to be quick or easy, but it is critical to make sure the program's gains are permanent. The main goals are:
Phase II will take us 18 months and will have a cost of approximately $125,000. In some ways it's going to be the least visible work we do. How do you get donors excited about someone keeping a job, not doing drugs or not getting arrested? But the honest truth is that no matter how good an eight week gang intervention program is, without serious follow-up by trained counselers and social workers, change won't last long.
As always, we are deeply appreciative of your support, as are the graduates themselves. They know that Esperanza is not a government program. That it is supported by hundreds of people who want them to succeed makes a big difference to them, as it does to us.
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