About

THE STORY OF SAVE THE KIDS

Save the Kids (STK) emerged in the summer of 2009 out of Outdoor Empowerment (OE), a nonprofit established in 2005. Save the Kids National was established in August 2011.

Save the Kids is a nonprofit 501 c 3 national organization located in Utah.

In 2009, four African-American youth (Jason, Ali, Jarih, and Amound) in Hillbrook Juvenile Detention Facility chose “Save the Kids” and its mission, while participating in a group discussion about the need for an organization to keep them from being trapped in the juvenile justice system. They needed, as one kid stated, “to be saved instead of thrown away as trash.” That statement speaks volumes.

STK does not claim to have all the answers, nor are we outsiders coming in to “save” anyone. We are individuals who have and had family members incarcerated in youth detention facilities and/or adult prisons and jails. We are made up of formerly incarcerated youth and adults, politicians, lobbyists, policymakers, judges, lawyers, detention staff and administration, youth advocates, teachers, religious leaders, and mentors.

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MISSION STATEMENT

Save the Kids is a national grass-roots transformative justice organization dedicated to building a movement for alternatives to and the end of the school to prison pipeline and the policing, criminalizing, and incarcerating of all youth through integration services and hip hop and lowrider advocacy of systems-impacted BIYOC.

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History

Save the Kids was founded in 2009 by four brilliant hopeful Black youth, Amoud, Jahri, Ali, and Jason, in a juvenile detention facility in New York to liberate and defend all systems impacted BIYOC.

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Programs

Our three BIYOC focused programs are all free, public, celebratory, and family-friendly are led with BIYOC to provide space and place of BIYOC voices and stories with partnerships between key agencies such as juvenile detention facilities, organizations, school districts, and colleges/universities.

When you become part of Save the Kids you – receive educational development, build your network, become part of a larger movement, and receive awareness-based merchandise that funds the organization.

Each Save the Kids’ chapter is required to have a coordinator to manage each of the three programs. The three programs are Integration Service Program, Hip Hop Studies Program, and Lowrider Studies Program.

1) Integration Service Program:
(a) Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshops (life skills and conflict transformation)
(b) support group (education and career support group)
(c) education events (heath and well-being)

2) Hip Hop Studies Program:
(a) educational events (such as conferences, film screenings, lectures, workshops, and teach-ins)
(b) community shows (such as poetry slams, Hip Hop shows, DJ battles, lowrider shows, and cyphers)
(c) productions/publications (such as newsletters, journals, podcasts, videos, and books)

3) Lowrider Studies Program:
(a) educational events (such as conferences, film screenings, lectures, workshops, and teach-ins)
(b) community shows (such as poetry slams, Hip Hop shows, DJ battles, lowrider shows, and cyphers)
(c) productions/publications (such as newsletters, journals, podcasts, videos, and books

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TEN POINT PRINCIPLES

We believe that all youth need support, love, and skills in order to achieve their goals.
We believe that all youth are amazing and wonderful, no matter the actions they have committed.
We make a clear distinction between actions and kids; actions can be bad, but not kids.
We are committed to promoting food justice for healthy sustainable living with youth because they are our future and if we do not help them, we will not have one.
We believe in respecting all gender, ability, race, economic status, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, health, age, or nationality.
As a Hip Hop activist organization, we work towards both social justice and the end of all forms of oppression, specifically the school-to-prison pipeline.
As an organization based on transformative justice principles, we strive to promote and analyze alternatives to incarceration, such as community-based programs, rather than institutionalization.
We believe in peace and nonviolence in resolving and transforming all conflicts.
We reject the stigma created by labeling and are inclusive in all of our activities.
We promote interdependence, that everyone in the community should work together in making a peaceful world and not to exclude anyone. STK will work with everyone and anyone in order to achieve that goal.