Our 3 Ps

Urban Hope seeks to transform the low-income neighborhood of Walltown in inner-city Durham, NC, by reaching urban youth and their families through three primary means:

Personal Presence - All Navigator staff with Urban Hope live in Walltown.  Programs and activities are necessary, but real transformation is the result of consistent personal interaction.  We live out our vocation 24/7 as trusted neighbors and friends.  Our homes become places of refuge for youth who often live in unstructured, chaotic environments.

Proactive Prevention - Most programs exist in the city to help people only after they have demonstrated delinquent behavior.  Urban Hope's focus is not rehabilitation, but prevention.  We empower the youth to resist at-risk behaviors by developing their inner assets and character.  We conduct a seven-week summer camp for 40 teens that teaches financial literacy, job skills, entrepreneurship, spiritual growth and leadership.  We have year-round small group activities that build on these topics.  The strength of our ministry is mentoring a dozen potential young leaders.  These teens can change the culture of despair that causes youth in the neighborhood to join gangs, drop out of school or get pregnant.  Our success will be measured by the statistic "zero."  Zero teens from the neighborhood in gangs, zero school dropouts, zero teens in jail, and zero teen pregnancies.

Productive People - We want to see our neighborhoods filled with productive citizens.  The youth are being taught to care about their community and their neighbors.  They are being trained to incorporate the values of faith, hope and love in all that they do.  College preparation, job training and entrepreneurship development all go together to produce citizens who graduate, develop good vocations, run solid businesses, and contribute to the safety of our communities.

"We are residents; our focus is prevention; we develop the people.  Only through changed citizens can we have changed communities."