program description

The cornerstone of Each One Reach One's vision is the belief in the transformative power of the arts and education and our commitment to employ professional theater artists and community members to mentor incarcerated kids.

Our programs are conducted at the Youth Services Center and Camp Kemp for Girls’ in San Mateo, the Juvenile Justice Center in San Francisco and Camp Glenwood for Boys in La Honda. EORO’s activities include:

• A Dream and A Plan for Tomorrow (ADAPT) is the only after-school facilitated study hall program inside youth detention facilities in the Bay Area addressing the special academic needs of incarcerated youth. In ADAPT’s tutoring component, youth work one-on-one with academic tutors/mentors to pursue a General Education Diploma (GED) as well as providing post-release links to community resources that assist them to identify job training and employment opportunities before they are released. A GED can open the doors to educational and employment opportunities for youth who do not have the necessary credits to graduate from high school. Over 343 youth have participated with a 150 youth receiving their GED or passing 1-5 of the necessary examines prior to their release back to community.
  
  
• Playwriting Program has served over 640 youth. The detained youth work one-on-one with a theater professional and/or professional painter to write an original, one-act play or create an original painting. Through this creative process, youth examine their life choices as well as their attitudes, opinions and values. Each playwriting workshop concludes with a staged reading of the plays by professional actors and/or a formal art showing before a live audience comprising the youth’s parents, peers, teachers, caseworkers and invited members of the public. These shows have proven to be transformative: for many of the youth, it is the first time they have experienced success or had their accomplishments publicly recognized.
  
  
• Creative Expression Painting Program, in collaboration with Brush Fire Painting Workshops www.paintbrushfire.org, employs the art practice known as Process Oriented Painting, which teaches youth to explore, process, and express their emotions in constructive and creative ways. This method also focuses on the creative process (unlike traditional art methods that concentrate on the products that result from the artistic process). In our classes, students learn how the fundamentals of visual art, such as metaphor, color, line, and shape, are used to safely explore emotional issues such as culture, identity, family, community, strength and stress. This program is conducted at San Mateo County’s Youth Services Center serving the girls between the ages of 12-17.
  
  
• Healthy Choices Teen Pregnancy Prevention and Life-Skills Program for Girls is a health education and life skills program for girls detained at the Youth Services Center in San Mateo. Facilitated by a case manager, the program consists of classes and activities on topics of teen pregnancy prevention, self-esteem and body image, budgeting, employment, relationships and more. The young girls at the Youth Services Center receive almost no programming while detained.
  
  
• The Keeping It Safe (KIS) HIV/STD Prevention Program offers youth the opportunity to learn how to recognize concepts that traditionally have been provided by familial role models. Our program focuses on defining healthy, respectful personal relationships, recognizing the importance of pursuing HIV prevention skills, and the identification and discussion of the effects of potential risks associated with sexual intimacy such as, HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases (STD). The program maintains a comprehensive focus on AIDS and HIV prevention. Youth participants are encouraged to form personal health goals and by meeting these strategic goals, they establish the foundation to meet other personal goals and create a life based on healthy choices.