Hope for Youth Alliance was invited to present a gang prevention and training for students and teachers at the Pueblo of San Juan (Okay Owingue Community School) Community Day School. HYA will be following up and continuing to provide services and outreach projects to OOCS.

G.O.E.S.T Gang Prevention and Resources

Testimony of Former Gang Member Here

How Educators, community members and organizations can prevent gang involvement.

1. Outreach to the community and on school campus’ that have a genuine concern for at-risk and gang affiliated youth.
2. Connect with gang members and at-risk youth in order to develop a trust and working relationship with them.
3. Utilize our ex-gang member panel and other testimonials. This panel understands first hand the dangers of gangs and encourages families and children to avoid gang affiliation.
4. Assess your gang concern and assist you and your team in addressing why kids join gangs and what we can do about it.
5. Develop a community collaboration to discover and provide the necessary elements or tools that will assist youth in not joining a gang or to leave active gang membership.
6. Get parental involvement. This is most vital in helping youth avoid or leave gang membership. I put 100% of the responsibility on the parents of these destructive youth. The program I utilize is “The Parent Project: How to change destructive adolescent behavior”.

7. Develop a mentor program for the most at-risk gang youth.

8. Communicate and network with the police and other law enforcement agencies.

Out of Darkness is a Biographical Comic Series aimed at not only entertaining but educating youth. These true stories take an intricate look into inner-city gang life, revealing the hardships, pain and the constant struggle that comes with joining a gang. Another strong theme in the stories is that no matter how bleak things seem, that there is always an alternative; that there is always a way out of darkness. Pepe Montenegro Testimony Comics Available Here at G.O.E.S.T.ORG

Read Testimony of former Los Angeles Gang member Miguel Moreno here

Miguel Moreno- Former Los Angeles Gang member whose younger brother died in his arms after he was shot in drive-by shooting by a rival gang, and another older brother shot another brother because he was a rival gang member. He unmasks the realities that gangs never add to a young persons life. He was shot 2 times, stabbed 10 times, and lives with the scars. He was often beaten along with his mother on the streets of his neighborhood. He unmasks the realties of gangs, ‘gangs do not to protect, respect you, or add to your life, they take your family, your education and your future. His message to kids is- “get out before its to late, my life was spared many times, yours may not.” He says, ‘the gangsters that I knew that were down for the hood, are spending the rest of their lives in cages like a dog in prisons with 1 hour of sunlight per-day, on a wheelchair, and or buried 6 feet under. If I had known all the losses that gangs had to offer me, I would have never chosen to be in a gang.

What is he doing now? He is a Mentor to Little Sammy (Pictured Above) with Hope for Youth Alliance. He is a guest speaker as one of HYA Former Gang Member Panel to reach gang involved youth though our School Gang Intervention/Prevention Assemblies and Outreaches.

Moreno pictured (Below) speaking to a group of young men at the Santa Fe County Detention Centers Day Drop in Program. SFCDC invited Hope for Youth Alliance to speak to youth. More Photos Here

Why do teenagers get involved with these (Gangs)?

The answer is simply, but painful. When a teenager doesn’t receive appreciation, security, comfort, or whatever that teenager needs at home, they seek an alternative source. That other source may be a group that embraces the hurting teenager and accepts them for who they are. But what if this accepting, new group participates in negative or destructive actions-vandalism, alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, parental defiance, and unacceptable language?

Hurting teenagers, who are so absorbed in getting their unmet needs satisfied, willingly compromise personal morals and convictions to be accepted, to feel approval; to gain the attention denied them by their families. As Walt Mueller says, “If we choose not to mold and shape our children, someone else will.”