Livelihood regeneration

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Image 1 of 6 A HOPE intern worked at the New York office of Halcrow

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Featured project - The rise of hope over despair, £40,000 to train New York’s unemployed.

An initiative that helps the New York underclass escape lives of grinding poverty and hopelessness is being helped by a Halcrow Foundation grant of £40,000 over three years.

Some £30,000 will support the HOPEworks project, which gives the very poor and unskilled the knowledge and confidence to find a way into the world of employment. The remaining money has funded the HOPE Program’s Green Collar project, training some of the city’s poorest residents for jobs in the environmental arena.

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Video filmed in November 2008

The beneficiaries suffer many impediments which prevent them finding work. But of all the statistics, it is those for ethnic origin and mental illness which make for the hardest reading. A staggering 95 per cent of Hope participants suffer from mental health problems – and the same percentage are African-American.

HOPE does not accept that people living in extreme poverty are doomed to being forever unemployed. The charity believes that with appropriate interventions people living on the margins of society can find productive roles in mainstream life.

HOPE plays a pivotal role in offering training, job placement and career advancement assistance. This is combined with practical help in obtaining childcare, housing and medical treatment.

The HOPEworks programme offers students a 12-week classroom training programme structured around a 9-5, Monday to Friday week. As well as vital IT skills, the students are taught reading, writing and communication skills, while developing workplace competencies, such as problem-solving, CV writing and interviewing skills. Students also spend time as interns in companies where they test out their new skills in a professional setting and gain valuable work experience.

But the help doesn’t end there. HOPE also offers a job retention and career advancement programme to help former students move up the career ladder. This involves evening computer classes, job retention workshops and career nights.