Gideon’s Army Grassroots Army for Children – Nashville, TN
Gideon’s Army is a community-based grassroots workforce development organization made up of black individuals that have been impacted by mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline and youth violence. As a violence prevention organization focused on eliminating the root cause of the prison pipeline by guiding youth to success through community self-empowerment and leadership based off of restorative healing, Gideon’s Army uses restorative justice programs to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, and its programs address school pushout, youth violence, policing, and juvenile justice. The workforce program is Gideon’s Army University, and it is operated on a quarter system where participants focus on just training and education, alternatives to violence, dialectical, behavioral, and skill building. Gideon’s Army’s workforce development model has two components: hiring people from their community for their internal staff workforce, and their workforce development program is designed to accommodate the broader community as a part of their Economic Justice Initiative.
The Fund for Workforce Equity supports worker/learner community organizing training and stipends for worker/learners in Gideon’s Army workforce program to sustain members.