Fighting gangs with jobs, El Salvador non-profit steers youth away from crime

Published in Reuters

By Igarape Institute

Community cafes and after-school clubs aren’t obvious tools for tackling gang violence but a non-profit picked up a prestigious award on Thursday for the creative ways it helps over a million young Latin Americans avoid crime and find jobs. El Salvador-based Glasswing International trains thousands of community volunteers in some of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods to show jobless teenagers there is an alternative to a life of crime and gangs. In a region where one in four young people neither studies nor works, the organization offers therapy to adolescents from the slums of Mexico to Honduras and trains them to work as bakers, electricians and technicians.

Read More