Mission Overview
Mission
Our mission is to address the problems of poor healthcare, low health literacy, violence, lack of access to quality healthcare providers, and systemic injustices that have plagued our communities for generations. We focus on empowering underrepresented minority youth to become trained in recognizing and responding to the most prevalent life threatening emergency scenarios while being exposed to health related careers, in hopes of increasing representation in the field of medicine. We aim to sustainably combat pervasive health care disparities that more commonly impact the underserved communities we work with.
Goals
Increase the number of youth on the South Side of Chicago who possess life saving health emergency response skills. Through our Emergency Response Workshop Program, youth will learn to recognize and respond to the critical symptoms of stroke, cardiac arrest, life threatening bleeding; and are trained in CPR, defibrillator use, gunshot/stab wound packing, and tourniquet application.
Increase the representation of minorities in the medical profession through exposure to medical career options and mentorship. Through our Medical Careers Exposure Program and our Summer Pipeline Program, youth will learn about dual enrollment in high school and EMT, nursing, and radiology schooling; as well as have the opportunity to many different medical career paths.
Build trauma resiliency for at-risk youth on the South Side of Chicago. Through our TRAP Violence Program, we educate youth on the structural causes of violence; increase their awareness of the factors leading to violence, improve their trauma coping skills; and provide them with tools to recognize and respond to potentially violent encounters.
Reduce pervasive health disparities that impact residents of the South Side of Chicago.
Outreach
We deliver our programming to local high schools on Chicago’s South and West Side. By providing emergency response skills to students of high school age, and by exposing them to careers in the medical field, we are strengthening the next generation of community members and leaders, who will then be in a better position to address the health disparities experienced by our communities. Our team also provides our programming in other community settings such as churches, conferences, and community fairs. So far, we've trained well over 7,000 students and adults.