Welcome to Fearless Loving Youth!
It is a known fact that violence among youth in our culture is interwoven into our daily experience. Police logs throughout the country reflect crimes both reported and unreported by the media. Hospital emergency rooms, corridors and morgues tell another story. The broken lives of loved ones who struggle to recover amidst the sequela of deep trauma reveals the greatest despair. Violence among youth is a malignancy in our culture and a major public health issue escalating to epidemic proportions. As with any malignancy, the conditions for healing best occur when extrication is at the core level followed by supportive therapy. Fearless Loving Youth (FLY) is established to address the core causes of disruptions in relationships that escalate to violence as a form of resolution with a faith-based platform for healing.
Violence is a public health problem and should be treated as such. If we acknowledge violence as a manifestation of dis/ease caused by disruption on a core level, a multi-layered approach can be understood. This would encompass mental health, emotional health, behavioral health, and educational health. FLY is designed to teach youth to make healthy life choices based on right thinking, right feeling, right speaking, right actions, and right reactions ultimately leading to a lifestyle of responsibility and accountability. It is our goal to address issues of social health as well as provide guidance in educational and career choices to foster moral and economic development.
FLY employs a holistic approach addressing the needs of mind-body-emotional and spiritual health. The Program is structured to teach accountability fostering a strong and healthy sense of self with insight as to the impact of the media on life choices and the use of discernment. The curriculum revolves around a ten-week course; one week introduction and nine weeks of instruction of key concepts. The concepts are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. As it is faith-based, the goal is to produce a life that bears “fruit.”
Our Program addresses youth at risk with outreach that include schools, churches, foster care programs, and community centers. The concepts of risk and protective factors are introduced in the 1998 Surgeon General Report on Youth Violence by the Surgeon General David Thatcher… “With the concepts of risk and protection being integral to public health, a risk factor is anything that increases the probability that a person will suffer harm…” Each day 15 children are shot to death and 30 are wounded. Every four hours a child commits suicide. Though only 8% of the population is juvenile, ages 14-24 are responsible for 14% of all violent crimes, 50% of all murders, 25% of all property related crimes, and a majority of all arson arrests. These numbers are not trending down! There is no competition in combating this malignancy. It will take a cohesive effort on the part of our nation to abort and prevent this rapidly metastasizing disease.
FLY FriendRaiser Video
In support of our efforts, friends, colleagues, and sponsors from all over the city of Chicago came out to show how much they appreciate our dedication to the youth of the world. Their support was demonstrated by their willingness to give.
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