MAAFA Redemption Project
MAAFA Redemption Project
- City/State: Chicago, Ill.
- Grant Program: Grants Plus
- Grant Amount: $400,000
Project Summary:
The MAAFA Redemption Project is a faith-based residential institute for resilient Black and Brown young men and their families from the West Garfield Park community, which has one of the lowest life expectancies in Chicago. The project offers dormitory-style residential support, workforce training, character/spiritual-development, academic enrichment, and a host of wrap-around social services. MAAFA is also the organizing partner in local community revitalization programs and capital projects. Combining direct services with community development, MAAFA’s approach is creating both individual and communal impact. By investing in the neighborhood’s young people and their children, they are laying the foundation for a community reimagined and redeveloped.
MAAFA’s approach is built on the understanding that basic human needs must be met to create an environment where transformation can begin to happen. The men live together as a cohort in a safe, stable, dormitory-style home for nine months. At the MAAFA house, they work with life coaches and support each other to build a sense of community, belonging, and shared responsibility.
MAAFA recognizes the potential of the men to become community leaders and invests in them by creating a pathway to education. The men take courses online for their GED, or with a partner organization, Southern New Hampshire University, to earn their Associate or Bachelor’s degree. All participants also complete a MAAFA-designed curriculum, which includes financial literacy, civic empowerment, historical/cultural identity development, and health/nutrition courses.
The men also learn soft and technical job skills through rigorous training in the construction trades, landscaping, as well as through their leadership roles in the residence. MAAFA also provides the men with a stipend that mirrors real-world employment and incentivizes their engagement for the duration of the program. The men are also offered internship opportunities through MAAFA’s partnership with a variety of employers.
Finally, helping the men become active participants in the civic life of the community is central to MAAFA’s approach. The men engage in volunteer service-learning activities, discuss their experiences in group meetings with local law enforcement and community leaders, and go on participatory group visits to observe civic processes at the city, state, and national levels. Recent trips have included Washington, D.C., to visit the Museum of African-American History and Howard University; Memphis, Tenn., to visit the National Civil Rights Museum; and Montgomery, Ala., to see the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Museum.
The MAAFA Redemption Project continues to be a catalyst for the redevelopment of their West Garfield Park community. In 2023, MAAFA and their partners in the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative were awarded the Pritzker Traubert Foundation’s “Chicago Prize,” a $10 million investment for the development of the Sankofa Wellness Village.
The Village will be a series of interconnected capital projects and social enterprises that will create safe, community-informed and owned, culturally empowering services. It will include The MAAFA Center for Arts & Activism, where the MAAFA Redemption Project is housed, The Sankofa Village Wellness Center, The K Entrepreneurship Development Hub, and The Community Grocer Initiative.
