Honduras – Alianza Joven

Program

2 min read

With the financial support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Honduran Youth Alliance (Alianza Joven Honduras in Spanish) strengthened and established a combined total of 64 outreach centers that benefitted more than 34,000 youth with English, IT and life skills instruction. The Honduran Youth Alliance supported civil society organizations in advocacy and oversight efforts for violence prevention and conducted impactful national and local violence prevention campaigns.

Through solid partnerships with the private sector, which included more than 100 alliances, the alliance trained youth in skills for income generating activities. The program also worked in juvenile justice, providing trainings to juvenile justice operators and supporting positive reforms to the system.

AJH built a strong partnership with the Honduran federal government. Based on the program’s positive results in communities and municipalities, the Honduran government contributed more than $2 million to support the Outreach Centers, IT trainings for youth and violence awareness campaigns.

The Honduran Youth Alliance piloted a secondary prevention project leveraging a family-based model. Called PROPONTE, the pilot used the Youth Services Eligibility Tool (YSET) to identify youth at the highest risk of joining gangs in five communities in Tegucigalpa. PROPONTE provided counseling and other support services to the youth and their families that participated in the project.

At the end of the pilot period (November 2013 to June 2015), the interventions significantly reduced youth risk factors among youth in the project, including a 77 percent drop in the crime and substance abuse risk factor, a 78 percent drop in antisocial tendencies and 76 percent decrease in guilt neutralization.

Based on the successful pilot, USAID funded a larger initiative called Proponte Más.

El Salvador – Crime and Violence Prevention Project

Program

1 min read

The U.S. Agency for International Development-funded El Salvador Violence and Crime Prevention Project improved the ability of communities, municipalities and national institutions to address violent crime.

Building on Creative’s success with violence prevention programs elsewhere in Central America, this five-year project reached more than 53,000 Salvadorans through community-focused initiatives in 55 Salvadoran municipalities.

Creative collaborated with the government of El Salvador to develop the National System for the Prevention of Violence Law. It also assisted the government with the implementation of the National Strategy for Violence Prevention, a vital document that set country-wide policy and empowered municipalities to take the lead on prevention projects. Creative helped implement the strategy by carrying out diagnostics and creating crime and violence prevention plans in a total of 41 municipalities.

At the municipal level, Creative developed a complete diagnostic guide incorporating 13 risk factors to identify issues facing youth. Creative used this information to develop crime and violence prevention plans, which created solutions for at-risk youth through prevention tools and programming.

More than 20,000 youth and community members benefited from 123 outreach centers, which boast a total of 704 volunteers. More than 3,200 youth received employment orientation training, while 872 youth across 12 municipalities participated in Youth Clubs, which promote art, music, dance clubs and outdoor activities.

EL SALVADOR: Strengthening Mechanisms and Channels for Citizen Participation in Democratic Decision-Making Processes

September 12, 2014

1 min read

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EL SALVADOR

Strengthening Mechanisms and Channels for Citizen Participation in Democratic Decision-Making Processes

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text] El_Salvador_Mechanisms Creative Associates’ Citizen Participation and Governance project, begun in 2000, opened lines of communication between citizens and government in El Salvador, encouraging the development of an active, influential citizenry skillful in articulating and promoting policy change. Citizen watchdog groups monitoring government spending were created, as well as programs to prevent corruption and an internship program working with the Legislative Assembly to bridge the information divide. Creative provided assistance to an electoral program, which supported the National Registry of Natural Persons and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. A citizen advocacy guide was published and presented to the National Assembly and made available online. The project assisted civil society organizations in learning how to influence public policy change, and it expanded the legislative process to incoporate greater citizen input and oversight, improving the ability of ordinary citizens and government representatives to collaborate.

Boletin Informativo Marzo 2005

Boletin Informativo January 2005

Boletin Informativo November 2004

Boletin Informativo October 2004

Boletin Informativo September 2004

Boletin Informativo Agosto 2004

Boletin Informativo Julio 2004

Boletin Informativo Junio 2004

Advocacy the Legislative Assembly: A Citizens Guide (English PDF)

Advocacy the Legislative Assembly: A Citizens Guide (Spanish website)

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Holistic approach to the youth migration crisis

August 29, 2014

3 min read

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Holistic approach to the youth migration crisis

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Pervasive gang violence, organized crime, and sweeping poverty are driving tens of thousands of Central American children to flee their homes countries and risk their lives, unaccompanied, on a multi-country journey to the U.S., causing a youth migration crisis of unseen proportions on both sides of the border.

International development partners and host communities in the U.S. are reevaluating strategies to mitigate the push factors driving this migration and address the needs of young migrants arriving daily.

“We have a lot of questions about how we need to think about this work so it does work,” says Guillermo Cespedes, former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles for Gangs and Violence Prevention and current Crime and Violence Prevention Advisor at Creative Associates International, speaking at a recent roundtable called “Pushed & Pulled: Central America and the Youth Migration Crisis.”

The meeting of experts and practitioners in international development, violence prevention and youth migration was convened on Aug. 26 by the Alliance for International Youth Development, a community of practice and advocacy platform for U.S.-based youth and community development organizations.

Cespedes says that in order to effectively target the multifaceted and interrelated push factors affecting these Central American communities, in-country interventions must be place-based, family-centered, integrated and multi-systemic.

In the most at-risk areas that governments cannot access, community outreach centers can help stem the drivers of migration by providing education and employment training and opportunities, anti-violence programming, health services and accurate information on immigration procedures to counter misinformation from smugglers, with a focus on the most vulnerable families and youth. Through its more than 130 outreach centers across Central America, Creative has already reached more than 43,136 young people with critical anti-gang violence programming. By the end of September, Creative will inaugurate new outreach centers in communities across Central America, bringing the total to 192.

Building on these place-based, family-centered, integrated and multi-systemic initiatives in-country, Humberto Lopez, Country Director for Central America at the World Bank, calls for a coordinated donor approach to address the transnational criminal networks behind this instability. “The development part has to come hand-in-hand with crime prevention…. In order to do this you are going to need people at different levels.”

In recent years, violence levels have soared in the three main Central American source countries of youth migrants to the U.S. Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world and is home to San Pedro Sula, the city with the highest murder rate outside of a war zone. Not far behind, El Salvador and Guatemala rank 4th and 5th respectively in highest murder rates per capita globally. For young people in the most violent and poor communities, often facing personal threats on their lives, immigration is seen as the way out.

As unaccompanied children continue to risk their lives, fleeing instability at home for an unknown, and hopefully brighter, future in the U.S., families are increasingly fragmented transnationally.

“We are stuck with families that will continue to live on both sides of the border,” says Cespedes. “The question is,‘can we continue to develop a model that will strengthen families on both side of the border?’”

For those children who have already crossed the border into the U.S. and are in need of critical education, health, psychosocial and legal resources, host communities, often with limited capacity and funds, are working to amass the resources to cope with this humanitarian crisis. Stuck in an immigration limbo, these young migrants will be placed in foster families or with relatives in the U.S. while they await an appointment and decision on their status from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In fiscal year 2013, 24,668 unaccompanied children immigrated to the United States. The government predicts this number could climb to more than 60,000 in fiscal year 2014.

“There doesn’t at this point seem to be any real solution,” says Lori Kaplan, President and CEO of the Latin American Youth Center in Washington, D.C. “The challenge here, for all of us as a community, is to step up in the ways we can at the local level and at the national level.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Colombia – Initial Governance Response Program

Program

2 min read

Colombia’s five decade effort to push back illegal armed groups and an ongoing fight against drug trafficking took on new vigor when the government launched a multi-year offensive that recovered territory and set the stage for peace. As the government began to reclaim territory, Colombia’s president formed a specialized office— called Acción Social—to coordinate the delivery of assistance to 15 regions recovered from these armed groups and all social services throughout the country.

To reinforce and support Acción Social’s efforts, in 2007 USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives funded Creative’s Initial Governance Response Program that focused on the La Macarena region and Meta Department. It had three primary goals: To strengthen the government’s credibility in the consolidation zones; to increase communities’ willingness to cooperate with authorities; and to boost the delivery of services based on communities’ prioritized needs.

In the region of La Macarena, Creative’s Programa Progreso initiative rolled out a strategy with farmers and ranchers in 169 villages to improve their existing products, production and value chains. It collaborated with formal and informal organizations as a conduit to reach the small-scale producers.

For example, in Vista Hermosa, a municipality of approximately 21,000 residents, Programa Progreso undertook 36 projects that revolved around seven main lines of production, such as honey and rubber.

It created 27 associations and engaged 10 existing ones in making well-informed, calculated decisions that improved the quality of production, strengthened value chains and increased income. The intervention benefited more than 8,700 residents—41 percent of the municipality’s population—and created 290 new jobs.

For the Colombian government, its role and legitimacy grew among the residents through an active presence and consultation process. Through eight coordinating meetings (with an average of 100 participants in each gathering), the government engaged residents in decisions. Separately, government officials were present in more than 220 meetings in Vista Hermosa.

In both the La Macarena region and Meta Department, the Initial Governance Response Program provided 700 short-term grants that averaged about $40,000 to promote private enterprise. The funds were matched by cash and in-kind resources from the Colombian national and local governments, as well as community members and the private sector.

Central America – Regional Youth Alliance

Program

2 min read

After its successful Youth Alliance Program in Guatemala that used mentoring, internships and job training to address gangs and gang violence, Creative was awarded the Regional Youth Alliance project in 2008 by the U.S. Agency for International Development. It focused on three Central American countries: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Known in Central America as Alianza Joven Regional, it used Creative’s successful methods in establishing community-based public-private alliances to leverage support, both in-kind and financial, for crime and violence prevention activities for youth.

Working through multi-sectoral alliances at all government levels, the project supported crime prevention, reinsertion and integration activities to decrease community vulnerability to crime and violence risk factors. It encouraged broad community participation through municipal crime prevention committees whose membership includes representatives from municipal governments, the private sector, civil society, and faith-based organizations and whose function is to identify risk factors in each municipality.

The project also served as a vehicle to assess regional legal frameworks and practices to promote multi-country policy and reform to promote a cohesive regional response to the gang problem and provides technical assistance to the Central American Integration System.

In its four years, the Regional Youth Alliance project awarded grants to organizations in 66 targeted communities that worked with gangs and gang prevention. The grants reached nearly 300 community leaders and served 6,000 at-risk youth.

The program also developed a successful job placement initiative, based on Creative’s Challenge 100 program in Guatemala which provided former gang members with mentors and job training. It grew out of Challenge 10—Peace for the EX^®, an innovative program that was also broadcast as a reality TV series. Nearly 450 rehabilitated gang members obtained permanent employment through the program.

Haiti – Electoral Security Assessment

Program

1 min read

Creative used the Electoral Security Framework Assessment methodology developed by the Creative team to look at electoral violence from a national perspective, but with a special focus on four of Haiti’s ten departments: Nippes, Grand Anse, South and North East where MINUSTAH security forces are being redeployed in preparation for the UN’s eventual withdrawal. In these four departments, the Creative team gave particular attention to identifying opportunities for community-based approaches to enhance electoral security and for monitoring and mitigation activities with an emphasis on addressing the needs of marginalized populations, including women and persons with disabilities.

Guatemala – Youth Challenge Program (YCP)

Program

2 min read

In Guatemala, youth face limited opportunities for education, job training and employment. As a result, many young people have turned to membership in gangs, which has resulted in political and social instability and a rise in crime.

Through a previous program, the USAID-funded Guatemala Youth Alliance Program, Creative provided second chances to vulnerable Guatemalan youth and former gang members through unique education and employment programs including seven new youth outreach centers staffed by former gang members and entrepreneurship trainings and competitions.

Based on the promising results of the Guatemala Youth Alliance Program, in 2008 USAID awarded Creative the Youth Challenge Program. The goal of the Youth Challenge Program, or Programa Desafio Joven, was to develop violence prevention initiatives to reduce crime and violence in high risk communities in and around Guatemala city, helping to improve the lives of Guatemala’s vulnerable and at-risk youth—a group that makes up nearly 66 percent of the country’s total population.

With a focus on impoverished youth who live in neighborhoods with high unemployment and limited job training opportunities, the program provided positive alternatives to street life and crime.

The Youth Challenge Program established Alianza Joven, a local NGO that continues to provide services to at-risk youth in Guatemala. The program also established 11 new youth outreach centers, bringing the total number of outreach centers in Guatemala to 18.

Helping former gang member to transition out of violence to better and more stable lives for their families and communities, the Youth Challenge Program placed 100 former gang members in jobs and provided tattoo removal and psychosocial services to former gang members and their families.

In 2009, the program established the Youth Movement Against Violence as a way to raise awareness of violence prevention in the country. The Movement has now been registered in country as an NGO and has since spread to all seven Central American countries and is operating regionally through Youth Against Violence-Central America.

The movement’s campaigns included “90 Minutes Against Violence,” a series of three soccer matches between teams including former gang members, government officials, politicians, business leaders, community members, artists and professional soccer players. The game, which drew more than 10,000 spectators and received national coverage, was part of a campaign aimed at involving youth in making violence prevention recommendations and strategies.

Guatemala – Youth Alliance Program (YAP)

Program

2 min read

Through the Guatemala Youth Alliance Program, Creative provided opportunities for vulnerable youth and former gang members through education and employment programs.

Working in some of Guatemala’s most violent neighborhoods, the USAID-funded program formed new alliances with faith-based and community organizations to provide opportunities for youth, including education, skills training, and options for constructive use of free time as a means of dissuading youths from joining gangs. Creative opened seven outreach centers, many managed by former gang members, accommodating more than 600 daily participants. With the help of community volunteers at the centers, youth improved their educational and career skills.

In 2006, the Youth Alliance Program launched “Challenge: 10 -Peace for the Ex.” Challenge 10 was a unique employment and public awareness project that supported two groups of five former gang members competing to create two businesses under the guidance of two prominent businessmen. Launched as a reality television series, Challenge 10 drew international media attention and resulted in the creation of shoe repair and car wash businesses, which continue to thrive.

The success of Challenge 10 helped initiate Challenge 100 – Peace for Guatemala. Challenge 100 paired 100 former gang members with local businesses that provided them with on-the-job training. Both Challenge 10 and Challenge 100 were widely supported with resources including funding, mentoring and job training provided by the private sector, a local university and the government. Engaging the private sector’s support in the transformation of former gang members from jobless youth to reliable workers speaks to Creative’s holistic approach to helping former gang members lead legitimate and productive lives.

Panama – Combating Child Labor through DESTINO

Program

2 min read

In Panama, many children from poor and indigenous families work to supplement family income. Despite national laws supporting universal primary education and a minimum age for employment, more than 14 percent of children are either working or engaged in some combination of work and school. Many of these children work in dangerous settings in agriculture or jobs on the streets in urban where they are vulnerable to weather, exploitation and crime.

To help combat child labor and ensure these children have access to education, Creative implemented the DESTINO, which stands for Disminuyendo y Erradicando el Trabajo Infantil para Nuevas Oportunidades. This project was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The DESTINO project worked on several fronts including: a national awareness-raising campaign about the negative consequences of child labor; supporting indigenous communities’ eco-tourist activities to generate income; establishing nine farm schools to educate the children of seasonal laborers and providing support for 30 tutorials and seven accelerated learning elementary schools. These accelerated learning schools supported working children who had dropped out of school to achieve a primary education.

Through community education centers, DESTINO also supported working children who attend primary school to stay in school and achieve academic success. The centers offered academic reinforcement, nutritional support, school uniforms and school supplies to children at risk of leaving school for work or those already working. This assistance encouraged low-income families to keep their children in school and, in some cases, to choose not to migrate for seasonal farm work and remove their children from these education supports.

The project resulted in 1,844 children being withdraw from work or prevented from working and established innovative models to meet the unique educational needs of child laborers.

Panama – Youth At Risk

Program

2 min read

In 29 selected communities affected by violence, Creative’s Panama Community Youth at Risk Project helped lower the risk factors for youth that make them vulnerable to violence and crime.

The USAID-funded project, known as Alcance Positivo in Panama, worked with the private sector, Panama’s government and community organizations to combat the alienation of youth from their communities. It also developed 5 Municipal Violence Prevention Councils to strengthen municipal and local-level violence prevention strategies. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor, the program led initiatives to reduce school drop-out rates and increase opportunities for job training and placement through the development of a new national life skills curriculum and a job preparedness curriculum.

Alcance developed 22 youth Outreach Centers with local partners that have served nearly 10,000 youth from 12 to 29 years old with technology, job training, tutoring and life skills. The project successfully established an alliance between the U.S. Embassy, United Way of Panama, municipalities and 11 corporate sponsors to support these centers.

Through activities like sports leagues and youth mentoring programs, Alcance Positivo engaged more than 40,000 at-risk youth in creative violence prevention activities. In partnership with the Ministry of Public Security, the Community Youth at Risk program established sports leagues for at-risk youth coached by local police.

Of the more than 6,000 youth who participated in a three-month sports tournament, nearly 83 percent reported improved respect of rules and norms and 58 percent reported less violent conduct.

Alcance Positivo also developed the capacity of the NGO sector through the creation of a NGO Management Certificate program, first ever national surveys on NGO management and volunteerism and creation of a web-based platform for learning, sharing best practices and connecting civil society in Panama through www.PonteEnAlgo.com.

The Alcance network of youth organizations, private sector partners and other groups shared best practices on how to reach at-risk youth with effective violence prevention strategies, with a particular focus on the needs of at-risk youth in unstable areas, including the Darien region along the border of Colombia.

Alcance also supported the Child and Adolescent Police Unit to promote community policing, school resource officers, and connection of the police to engaging youth in positive ways in the outreach centers.

During the project period, in the 29 target communities there was an increase of 24 percent of persons who said that they felt safe or extremely safe in their communities (from 38 percent to 62 percent).

Creative highlights community change on International Youth Day 2014

August 11, 2014

3 min read

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Creative highlights community change on International Youth Day 2014

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Aug.12, 2014 – In celebration of International Youth Day on Aug. 12, Creative Associates International recognizes those who are working to provide opportunities and hope to young people, particularly those in conflict and post-conflict environments. (www.CreativeAssociatesInternational.com)

“Today’s youth are incredibly capable and resilient, and want to be part of positive change in their families and communities,” says Charito Kruvant, President and CEO of Creative. “I have been so impressed to see that everywhere Creative works, young people are not just involved in this change; they are leading it.”

Initiated by the UN in 1999, this year’s theme is “Youth and Mental Health.” The UN reports that while 20 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion youth aged 15 to 24 experience a mental health condition, only 20 percent of these young people receive the treatment they need.

Creative’s Youth Day Celebrations

Creative and the communities where it works are celebrating International Youth Day in a variety of ways.

In Honduras, for instance, on Aug. 10 an estimated 1,000 members of the Alianza Joven Honduras program marched through the Parque Central of San Pedro Sula wearing white and carrying banners with violence prevention messages.

The program—funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and other partners—empowers youth and their communities to prevent and confront violence in cities like San Pedro Sula, where more than three people are murdered every day. In 2013, the city held the highest murder rate in the world, outside of a war zone.

The Youth Against Violence movement, whose work across Honduras and other Central American countries is supported by USAID, hosted a workshop in the city of Comayagua on Aug. 9 to launch a new chapter of the group.

The workshop brought together representatives of local neighborhood groups, churches, educational centers, the Municipal Youth Office and fire department. On Aug. 12, in the cities of El Progreso and Choloma, chapters of the group will sponsor breakdance, percussion and musical performances and marches to celebrate International Youth Day.

With 37 years of implementing global development programs – particularly ones that improve education and strengthen communities – Creative is proud of its holistic youth-centered initiatives that equip those it serves to lead the way in addressing violence, poverty and unemployment, says Kruvant, one of the four women who founded the company.

For example, in its Nigeria Northern Education Initiative (NEI), funded by USAID, Creative worked with local communities to expand access to education for orphans and vulnerable children, with a focus on health, life skills and psychosocial counseling.

Only 60 percent of school-aged children in Nigeria have access to basic education and the situation is even worse in the north.

“When I traveled to northern Nigeria, I saw the overwhelming obstacles young people must overcome to get an education,” says Kruvant. “We are deeply committed to ensuring that youth in these challenging situations have access to education and the tools and opportunities for long-term success.”

In its more than four years, the NEI program boosted school enrollment in the northern states of Bauchi and Sokoto by 33 percent, with a 38 percent jump for girls, and empowered 16,000 orphans and vulnerable children with the tools to overcome the psychosocial trauma caused by conflict and contribute to their communities.

In Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, Creative’s USAID-funded youth outreach centers have supported 43,136 young people in vulnerable communities by addressing the factors that make them vulnerable to violence. By the end of September, Creative will have 77 centers in El Salvador, bringing the total to 192 in Central America.

Dedicated to helping teenagers and young adults navigate the transition to positive adulthood in some of the most adverse environments, like Nigeria and Honduras, Creative recognizes the resiliency of youth and their neurological capacity to adapt and overcome trauma, which is supported by new research in adolescent brain development.

About Creative Associates International

Creative Associates International works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience in education, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace. Creative is the second-largest company owned by women that works with the U.S. government.

Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has active projects in more than 15 countries. Since 1977, it has worked in nearly 90 countries and on almost every continent. Recognized for its ability to work rapidly, flexibly and effectively in conflict-affected environments, Creative is committed to generating long-term sustainable solutions to complex development problems.

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