Java Hope

Description

Women are the backbone of society. When women are economically empowered, they impact their families, their neighborhood and ultimately society. We believe that social justice is a result of economic empowerment. As a social enterprise, our goal is to offer an alternative work program as opposed to current social services programs. Welfare to work programs are ineffective and many women cannot support their families with the low wage offered by this program. Java Hope empowers women to become business owners. We use supportive programs to build interpersonal skills while engaging the participants in entrepreneurial training. We feel this is a sustainable model. The Java Hope Project is a two year program with a six month intensive training component followed by 18 months of follow up mentoring. Our target participants are women, 18-40 years of age who are welfare dependent, have limited education, or are working in low wage jobs, and unable to pass an assessment test. Our support program builds interpersonal and entrepreneurial skills. Our Java Hope women earn a living wage during the training of the program. This includes additional support services through our collaborative partnerships. They receive assistance for housing, transportation (vouchers), child care, health care and a college scholarship if they qualify. Upon graduation, the participants have accessed to restricted funds generated through their coffee cart sales and micro-funding. Java Hope will end the mentor relationship after two years as graduates become full-fledged business owners.