Vision Regeneration, Inc.

Our Goal is to infiltrate all cultural shaping systems, i.e. Shaping the format of young people Changing popular culture through our network Media outlets: television, radio, movies, magazines, and all other developmental arts Fashion trends: clothing, trinkets, and slogans/lingo Social uplifting initiatives: Habitats for Humanity, Gang Prevention/Intervention, Drug Awareness, and Educational Incentives Legislative introduction: lobbying agents, voter registration, and state, local and national government awareness. With your help, we can expand the cause of "morality" by creating a productive future generation. It is a community enhancement organization whose mission is to create competitive alternatives to an anemic popular youth culture. It began as a one-on-one gang intervention service that developed into a community-based employment initiative for former gang members. Visions Regeneration has now evolved into an organization committed to providing personal empowerment through the creation and recreation of positive cultural images. When Visions Regeneration was founded under the leadership of Omar Jahwar, it began as an effective gang intervention and violence prevention service for the South Dallas Area. Following incarceration, thirty former gang members found meaningful employment through vision's community beautification projects. More than one hundred twenty-five people were trained in neighborhood violence prevention tactics. Still, Vision realized that root problems affecting youth were not being addressed. Urban adolescents find themselves at the center of the most discussions about the urban crisis. Characterized by poor education, inadequate housing, police brutality, government assistance rates, lack of future employment, the "underground economy", and exposure to violence, the environment that produces these young people is engulfed in negativity. Cultural messages internalized about one's values to society end in depression and aggression. Hopelessness results from an institutional failure to support the positive goals and dreams of young people in the city. Visions solution is the fostering of a new youth culture through the infusion of positive cultural images. It is Vision's belief that young people are not given legitimate opportunities to have positive fun. The "Positive Images" initiative provides a forum for competitive alternatives to negative images and activities. Through the experimental knowledge of our work with street-involved, urban adolescents, it has become increasingly clear that issues revolving around urban violence were as much psychological as sociological. We believes that the crux of the problem facing young people is the infiltration of negative cultural images that validate their hopelessness with no option to extricate themselves, and ultimately perpetuate social irresponsibility. We also recognize that negative images inform the urban mindset, but can be targeted and reformed. Positive development is a result of community commitment to provide stability and counter the promotion of negative cultural images. Young people do not always need to focus on drugs, school failure, broken family structure, family structure and legal issues. Instead, these young people have dreams, hobbies and interests that surpass their environment's expectations. They have potential, not pathology. There are two focus groups of urban youths. The first is the 10-14 year olds who have been earmarked as most "at risk". It is the age-range that most young people are dropped by the system and lost, often standing at a fork in the road, choosing whether to stay in structured society or become a part of the street. Second is the 17-24 year old group, without which intervention would be in vain. These older youths are often seen as the role models and "businessmen" of their community.