Our Vision

Hopeworks empowers youth to identify and develop their D.R.E.A.M.S. (Dynamic, Realizable Efforts to Attain and Maintain Success) and own their future.

Our Mission

We do this by enhancing the lives ­of inner-city Camden youth by expanding the learning opportunities available to them, pointing the way to a future full of hope and working together to create that future. The heart of our program is technology training, which we provide in­ a safe, respectful, and celebratory atmosphere. We train our youth in state-of-the art computer applications: website design, geographic information services (GIS), computer networking and repair, and video. 

Through the Hopeworks program, we specifically seek:

• To reduce the high school dropout rate for African-American and Hispanic youth in Camden, New Jersey.

• To create hope for the future, good-paying jobs, business development and educational opportunities for Camden's young people--specifically African-American and Hispanic youth between the ages of 17 and 25 who have dropped out of school. Such a mission is essential in that our city:
  • There are 8,000 young people who have dropped out of high school.¹
  • The high school dropout rate is close to 70% at the two public high schools
  • 34% of the city's young people are unemployed.
  • Nearly 50% of the city's young people live in poverty.

Our Program

We accomplish our mission through a three-part program:

1.  An advanced technology training program with two tracks-web site design and geographic information services

Two non-profit businesses that generate revenue and provide trainees with opportunities to work on real client projects as part of their training:

• A web site design business
  
• A geographic information systems services (GIS) business

2.  An internship, job placement, and educational growth program consisiting of four fundamental programs: that make up the Hopeworks experience:

Youth Entrepreneurial Training
Funded under a grant from the Camden Empowerment Zone to Camden-based EDTEC, Youth Entrepreneurial Training teaches trainees how to identify and capitalize on business opportunities.

Hope Through School
A 10 month program for youth that are in currently in high school. Hope Through School begins with an eight-week summer training in web site design skills. Youth who successfully complete the summer training have an after-school job with us during the academic school year.

HopeworksGIS
HopeworksGIS builds on the basic training component of our original web site design curriculum by offering an advanced track in GIS technology. It also expands our non-profit business scope to include geographic information services for local, governmental and non-profit organizations. Hopeworks is able to deploy youth data collection teams to meet custom client needs.

Hopeworks SummerGIS
Hopeworks SummerGIS will deploy 16 youth in 3 seperate GIS data collection teams who will update the digitalized parcel base map of the City of Camden. The goals of this program are:
To teach basic GIS data collection skills to 13 high school youth
In conjunction with our Hope Through School Program, to allow four of the youth to continue with after school jobs during the following 2002-2003 academic year
To build team skills:
The SummerGIS project is designed to be completely youth managed. Youth will be teaching and instructing other youth. The three youth team leaders manage the project from start to finish.
To provide a rewarding and safe environment for youth to work in during the summer.
To produce a complete parcel map of the City of Camden that will be populated with the following data layers:
Current housing conditions
Lot descriptions
Street conditions
Location of community assets
Location of all street lights

¹1990 Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.
²Camden County Workforce Investment Plan, Camden County Workforce Investment Board, March 2000, pp. 21-22. All three of the statistics cited above come from this report.

Click here for Census 2000 Statistics about the City of Camden.