Objective
Elijah's House objective is to inspire and enable all young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens.
Purpose
Education, Enrichment, Job Training and Self Development
The purpose of Elijah’s House is to provide youth with the tools necessary for equipping them for real-life work experiences that move them towards becoming productive, healthy and prosperous in mind, body and soul.
Elijah’s House provides youth with opportunities that bridge the gap between education and workplace environment through the involvement of job training, hands-on activities and interactive programming that allows them to develop skills within a specific field, skill or trade.
Goals
The goal of Elijah's House is to promote higher education that encourages young people to stay in school and to proceed with confidence to college and perhaps graduate school.
Elijah's House programs are designed to expose youth to a professional discipline which focuses on critical workplace skills, such as leadership, teamwork and collaboration and brainstorming.
Elijah’s House Programming Initiative
Elijah's House programs are a means for youth to redirect their behavior, channel their creativity, develop a job skill and get paid. Our programs are designed with youth in mind and act as a deterrent to negative influences such as drug selling, drug usage, truancy, theft and gang involvement. Elijah's House believes teens need to believe they have a future, which is why it is important to open up doors of opportunity to provide youth with a wider scope of interests that enabled them to recognize their abilities and talents in ways that help them dream and achieve far more than what they think. All our programs have become a vehicle that aid youth in developing self confidence, values and morals, moving them towards positive self-expression, creativity, and entrepreneurship and leading positive lives. Our program design offers youth combined educational and workplace opportunities that encouraged low-income teens to hope for better a future.
Established
Elijah's House was established in October, 2003 and was an umbrella organization under The Amalgamated Developmental Center. Our commitment throughout the years has been devoted to building relationships within the community by providing life-enhancing programs and character building through youth development for at risk inner city youth.
Elijah's House is a faith-based organization supported under Goodcity, NFP an organization which acts as Fiscal Agent to Elijah's House and provides our organization with 501c3 status. We have program site locations on the west and southside of Chicago including the Austin, Englewood, West Humboldt Park and Woodlawn communities.
WHY ELIJAH'S HOUSE?
Youth require ongoing innovative opportunities to keep them creatively, mentally, and socially stimulated in today's urban communities. Elijah's House programs provide youth with the tools necessary for equipping them for real-life work experiences as they move towards adulthood. Our programs provide opportunities that bridge the gap between education and workplace environment through the involvement of interactive programming that allows youth to develop skills within a specific skill or trade, exposing them to professional disciplines which focus on critical workplace skills, allowing them to express themselves.
Unsupervised youth during after-school hours of 3:00 pm and 8:00 pm are more likely to use alcohol, purchase and sell drugs and tobacco, engage in criminal and other high-risk behaviors, receive poor grades, drop out of school far more than youth who have the opportunity to benefit from constructive activities supervised by responsible and caring adults; and although our urban communities have various activities and programs that appeal to the social development of at risk-youth, these activities lack comprehensive after-school program opportunities that would stimulate youth to dream beyond their social-economical status.
Elijah's House offers programming that address the social, educational and economical needs of youth providing them with positive alternatives, deterring violent juvenile crime and at risk and negative teen behavior. Our programs combine education and job skill training in program models that provide opportunities of career exploration and exposure to a variety of related interests through targeted activities (e.g., job shadowing, speakers, workplace visits, etc.). Additionally, all Elijah's House programs aide youth in developing self confidence, leadership, values and morals, moving them towards positive self-expression, creativity, entrepreneurship and leading positive lives.