This is our highest hope for young people of color and the villages (communities) that nurture them.
If it takes a village to raise a child, what does it take to create and sustain healthy villages? Forward Promise advances healing practices that are rooted in–and reflective of–the culture and values of the communities served. This approach creates protective factors that counter the effects of dehumanization for whole communities and the young people they nurture.
Dehumanization invalidates the humanity of people of color through perceptions or actual treatment. It centers the pervasive idea that people of color do not need, and are not worthy of, basic human dignities. Dehumanizing narratives, policies, and practices daily traumatize people of color and threaten the healthy development of young people and their communities. Forward Promise and its village of grantees counter these effects with humanity-affirming solutions rooted in culture.
The COVID-19 pandemic is raging. The inequities that existed before the pandemic are deepening, while negatively impacting communities of color. And the organizations on the front lines are struggling to help the people in these communities take care of the basics. It is clear the helpers need help.
As the U.S. reckons with the dual pandemics of systemic racism and COVID-19—which disproportionately impacts communities of color—we must also disrupt the dehumanization that compromises the health and healing of youth of color.
December 1, 2021
November 10, 2021
October 27, 2021
October 13, 2021