The Challenge
In the Fairhill-Hartranft section of Philadelphia, neighborhood gun violence has been driven by a lack of access to basic services and opportunities, including quality medical and mental health care, addiction treatment, community spaces, jobs, public education, housing, and food. This dearth of resources is the result of long-term systemic disinvestment in the neighborhood. Historically, The Village of Arts and Humanities (The Village) has had the will, but not the capacity, to organize community members and stakeholders to address this challenge.
The Project
The Village of Arts and Humanities’ resident-led community safety plan project is designed to increase safety in the Fairhill-Hartranft neighborhood through care-centered approaches to violence prevention, with the goal of reducing the need for carceral involvement in the community. Through this Emerging Leader Fellowship, Nneka Azuka will work to increase The Village’s capacity for community organizing and neighborhood power-building as an effective strategy for more equitable access to the resources that reduce violence and reverse disinvestment policies.
Specifically, this Fellowship will enable Nneka to:
- Build trust, community knowledge, and organizing know-how by holding weekly meetings with external trainers and key local stakeholders.
- Develop a year-long organizing and evaluation campaign strategy in partnership with community members and Village staff.
- Recruit and train thirty intergenerational community members who are serving in informal and formal leadership roles to become members of the Community Organizing School.
- Implement an organizing strategy for community base building/mass mobilization, resource allocation, coalitional organizing, and engagement with elected officials.
- Assess the campaign and support a sustainability plan for the work, with the goal of creating a framework for other neighborhood organizations across the city.
