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Some inner-city youth have ducked bullet and built hope through their participation in neighborhood-based organizations that offer safety, support, guidance, companionship, opportunities for growth, and engagement. IN THE WORDS of one youth worker, daily goal of many young people in our nation's inner cities is to live, to duck bullet.(1) For these youth, seemingly simple task of making it through adolescence is a challenge. Success for them comes from surviving everyday urban threats to their future -- literal and figurative bullets of drugs, violence, crime, pregnancy, abuse, and neglect. Many inner-city youth express a hopeless view of their future, and their voices embody life in inner city for many who live inside and outside its borders: don't plan your future; you just take it as it comes. Life's a constant struggle 'cuz you can't count on anything. You don't know for sure what's even gonna happen next day. You could get shot walkin' down street.(2) get more respect for carryin' a Uzi than you do for goin' to school. Ain't nobody gonna cheer you on with 'I hope you do well, go to college.' Lyin' by, gettin' high, drinkin' beer, smokin' weed. Yeah, boy, that's our future. future be dead. Such despair no longer startles or surprises many Americans, for they, too, have lost hope for inner-city youth. When middle-class Americans hear that, by some estimates, more than one-quarter of U.S. young people confront a serious of never reaching productive maturity and that another one-quarter are at moderate risk,(3) they understand where despair comes from. When they hear that between 60% and 80% of today's young people judged seriously at risk live in this nation's inner cities and are unlikely to achieve healthy, constructive adulthood. they may well despair themselves.(4) Yet, despite all somber evidence, there are voices of hope -- hope among some special adults who work in organizations that support inner-city youth and hope among youth themselves: [People in this organization] push me to stay in there and work harder. They know I can go all way; I know I can go all way. It's just a choice of me doin' it, I'm gonna get there. I've decided in my mind that I can match anybody. . . . If you're smart and everything or you're tryin' to make somethin' out of yourself and you live in projects, that's good . . . because then you can encourage other people who live in bad neighborhoods. The [youth organization] is an opportunity to become people here, they'll help you become what you wanna become. They trust me. It makes me feel good. People here care, and I can become something. In many respects, these young people, whom we came to call the hopefuls, are no different from their peers. Every day they confront same vortex of gangs, drugs, violence, and poverty. Many contend with turbulent families, deficient and impersonal schools, and communities that seem to care little about them. Their interact ions with such helping institutions as service agencies or local police are often inadequate or degrading. What distinguishes hopefuls from other youth engaged in inner-city survival is their active involvement in some kind of neighborhood youth organization. These young people have ducked bullet and built hope through their participation in neighborhood-based organizations that offer safely, support, guidance, companionship, opportunities for growth, and engagement. Urban Sanctuaries Inner-city youth have a lot of time on their hands. For adolescents who are in school, some 40% of their waking hours are uncommitted.(5) When school doors shut behind them in early afternoon, these young people are often claimed by streets. For those not in school, free time hangs even heavier. In neighborhoods where recreational facilities are run-down and ill-equipped, parks become urban battlegrounds, shops and other commercial hangouts have closed one by one, and jobs are practically nonexistent. …
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