United States of America

Programmes: Youth SOAR: Sport and Arts for Resilience

Generations For Peace opened its first US office in July 2019 and began piloting “Youth Sport and Arts for Resilience (Youth SOAR),” its first US-based youth-led peacebuilding programme in August 2019 in Greater Grand Crossing in partnership with Laureus Sport for Good Foundation USA and Gary Comer Youth Center.

Greater Grand Crossing, a South Side Chicago neighborhood, is heavily affected by widespread violence, in particular gun violence. In response, the innovative and carefully-designed programme aims to reduce the level of youth violence in the area, strengthen youth resilience to violence, and increase youth’s sense of belonging to a positive peer group by training, mentoring, and supporting older local youth to implement weekly sport and arts activities with younger local youth, who will then be responsible for organising community engagements with other local youth.