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About Omega Boys Club
Mission
The Omega Boys Club/Street Soldiers mission is to keep young people alive and unharmed by violence and free from incarceration.
We provide youth with opportunity and support to build positive lives for themselves, and move into contributing roles in society.
Background
The Omega Boys Club/Street Soldiers was founded in 1987 as a program of the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House by Joe
Marshall, a middle school teacher and administrator, and Jack Jacqua, a middle school counselor. Both men were concerned about the number of African American youth who were dropping out of school and/or becoming involved in the drug trade. At first, the Club offered tutoring, basketball, and other positive recreational and educational activities. As the founders began to understand the prevalence and severity of the issues these youth were facing, they realized a deeper level of intervention was needed. A culture of violence was deeply ingrained in the youth's lives: in their homes, on the streets, in their neighborhoods, in their relationships with peers, in the movies they watched and the music they listened to. Through their day to day work with youth, the founders of Omega Boys Club/Street Soldiers identified violence as a public health issue, and developed an approach to helping youth move from the culture of violence to safer, more personally and socially productive alternatives. Currently, the Club has four primary programs:
The Omega Leadership Academy
This weekly program provides academic preparation and life skills education for all Club members. They also receive
counseling, college placement assistance and scholarship support. This component also provides non-college bound Club members with social and employment skills necessary to enter the job market.
To date 133 Omega students have graduated from college. There are currently 60 Omega college students, all receiving long-distance/in-person counseling and tutoring from Omega. Ten of these collegians will graduate this year.
The Omega Training Institute
This program trains individuals and professionals in violence prevention/conflict reduction skills, based on the Omega Boys Club/Street Soldiers model.
The Institute has three programs. The School Adoption Program works with six Bay Area schools, helping them transform their classrooms so they can achieve a violence-free learning environment and academic success. Omega Training Institutes inform, teach and train individuals who work with youth in the violence prevention and intervention methodology developed by the Omega Boys Club. The Street Soldiers National Consortium is a group of professionals and organizations trained in the Omega violence prevention methodology and dedicated to preventing violence by using and promoting the model. To date, Omega has trained 1,117 adults who work with youth, including police officers, youth development workers, and 756 Bay Area school faculty and staff affecting 12,096 students.
The Street Soldiers Violence Prevention Program
This project includes Street Soldiers Communications and Outreach:
- the Club's Hotline, 1-800-SOLDIER, which provides help and a source for information and referrals;
- workshops and presentations for community agencies, schools and other organizations;
- presentations to inmates in correctional institutions and training workshops for staff.
The Nationally-Syndicated Street Soldiers Radio Show
This award-winning call-in radio talk show deals with the pressing issues that young people face, particularly those related to keeping neighborhoods and communities safe.
The nationally syndicated Street Soldiers Radio Show, a weekly three-hour call-in show on 12 radio stations nationwide reaches over 300,000 listeners.
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