With the financial support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Honduran Youth Alliance (Alianza Joven Honduras in Spanish) strengthened and established a combined total of 64 outreach centers that benefitted more than 34,000 youth with English, IT and life skills instruction. The Honduran Youth Alliance supported civil society organizations in advocacy and oversight efforts for violence prevention and conducted impactful national and local violence prevention campaigns.
Through solid partnerships with the private sector, which included more than 100 alliances, the alliance trained youth in skills for income generating activities. The program also worked in juvenile justice, providing trainings to juvenile justice operators and supporting positive reforms to the system.
AJH built a strong partnership with the Honduran federal government. Based on the program’s positive results in communities and municipalities, the Honduran government contributed more than $2 million to support the Outreach Centers, IT trainings for youth and violence awareness campaigns.
The Honduran Youth Alliance piloted a secondary prevention project leveraging a family-based model. Called PROPONTE, the pilot used the Youth Services Eligibility Tool (YSET) to identify youth at the highest risk of joining gangs in five communities in Tegucigalpa. PROPONTE provided counseling and other support services to the youth and their families that participated in the project.
At the end of the pilot period (November 2013 to June 2015), the interventions significantly reduced youth risk factors among youth in the project, including a 77 percent drop in the crime and substance abuse risk factor, a 78 percent drop in antisocial tendencies and 76 percent decrease in guilt neutralization.
Based on the successful pilot, USAID funded a larger initiative called Proponte Más.
