Programs
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Women's Program
Hunnicutt Foundation seeks to help women to realize their potential. We believe that investing in women fundamentally strengthens families and societies. Our Women's Empowerment Program develops women's leadership, strengthens women's organizations, increases women's rights and ensures their personal security, and creates new political and economic opportunities for women across the city of San Francisco.
Mobilizing women has proved powerful in order to accelerate progress in each country, through facilitating networking, coordination, and collaboration among women and women’s groups.
We believe that by working with others, we can do more than anyone can do on their own. The best way to unlock human potential is through the power of creative cooperation.
Of the 1.2 billion people that live in absolute poverty, the majority are women and girls. Over a quarter of a million women die each year from largely preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Women play critical roles in food production and preparation, but in many cultures, they consume the poorest quality food and are the first to face hunger when food is scarce.
Poverty-fighting and humanitarian action programs need to place a special focus on empowering women and girls. They also are an important part of the solutions needed to truly overcome poverty. History shows us that when equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help their families and entire communities escape poverty.
When women earn an income, they reinvest the vast majority of it in the well-being of their families. For every year a girl spends in school, she raises her family income by up to 20 percent. Educated girls grow into educated women, who have healthier babies and are more likely to educate their children. Empowerment is not just about giving women training. Empowerment is more than that. It means that relationships and social structures that shape the lives of women and girls must change.
Women’s empowerment can only be achieved when we include men and boys. Men are often those who define and keep women and girls within boundaries. When we engage with them they realize that the empowerment of their wives, daughters, and sisters benefits the whole family and community.
Promoting gender equality and empowering women is one of the keys to lifting entire families out of poverty – and it defines our programs.
Become A Mentor
A mentor is a person or friend who guides a less experienced person by building trust and modeling positive behaviors. An effective mentor understands that his or her role is to be dependable, engaged, authentic, and tuned into the needs of the mentee.
Key Qualities of a Good Mentor
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Good listener
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Persistent
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Committed
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Patient and Supportive
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Trustworthy
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Provide Guidance
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Good Role Model
2
Men's Program
Our men’s program was developed to build a community of interest and social networking platform that enables its members to become effective leaders in society through our guiding principles of intelligence, innovation, influence, impact, and integrity.
The program focuses on the restoration of men in our communities, bringing jobs, housing, life skills, and vocational opportunities; by using the resources available and uniting the services of other organizations and volunteers as a team.
We will challenge all men who seek to enhance the quality of life, inspiring and encouraging men, knowing that all changes made in life, are up to the individual to make them.
Men have become more cognizant of the state of their lives and seek to be connected with other principle-centered men to share knowledge and resources. The challenges and aspirations that men have today are common across nationalities, ethnicities, religions, and cultures. Boys and men across the globe are being challenged on a variety of fronts. An inability for men to effectively overcome these challenges can lead to feelings of inadequacy, depression, domestic violence, and civil disobedience.
An experience with the penal system, becoming a teenage dad, dropping out of school, using drugs, or engaging in criminal activity are not rites of passage to becoming a real man. A real man in any society has vision, purpose, character and adds value to their family and the society at large.
If these life-impacting challenges are handled inappropriately through a lack of awareness and bad decisions, they can potentially undermine an individual’s effectiveness, sabotage their future, and cause them to live a life of mediocrity beneath their natural and spiritual privilege.
Without a conscious and sustainable effort to ensure that boys and men do not become negative social statistics, they remain at risk. Our program offers a strategic and viable solution for you. We distinguish and pride ourselves on our commitment to the personal and professional success of all of our participating members regardless of race, creed, color, ethnicity, or religious affiliation.
Our mission is to bring men together to effect change in their lives, families, communities, and countries. For boys, we fill a tremendous gap when they come out of high-risk environments like broken families and non-progressive communities. We specifically offer them educational, cultural, and spiritual resources to maximize their maturing into manhood.
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Youth Program
The Hunnicutt Group is centered on a comprehensive Youth Empowerment Model. This Model is a three-pronged approach that effectively engages young people in work that challenges them to develop skills, gain critical awareness, and participate in opportunities that are necessary for creating community change.
Skill Development
The process of strengthening the skills of youth so that they know how to effectively make decisions, positively interact with their peers, and act as community advocates.
Critical Awareness
The process of providing youth with the information and resources necessary for analyzing issues that affect their lives and environments as well as strategize on ways to act as change agents in their communities.
Opportunities
The process of providing youth with platforms for decision-making and encouraging their active participation in creating community change.
The job of youth development professionals is to provide opportunities for young people to develop the competencies they need to become successful contributing members of their communities (Pittman & Wright, 1991). Empowerment can be one of the most effective strategies for providing young people with opportunities to develop competence.
The job of youth development professionals is to provide opportunities for young people to develop the competencies they need to become successful contributing members of their communities (Pittman & Wright, 1991). Empowerment can be one of the most effective strategies for providing young people with opportunities to develop competence. Because of its wide use, the word "empowerment" has many different meanings to people.
According to Webster (1998), empower means "(1) to give official authority or legal power to; (2) enable; (3) to promote the self-actualization or influence." The strategy proscribed by the first definition can be quite effective provided that the party being empowered (that is, the "empowered") already has the competencies needed to achieve the desired outcome. The strategy does not work well when it is plugged into a framework of youth development in which empowerment itself is being used as a strategy for developing competencies in youth. For youth development, the third definition is more suitable.
"Empowering teens" refers to a process through which adults begin to share responsibility and power with young people. It is the same idea as teaching young people the rules of the game. Youth development professionals are helping young people develop non-academic competencies that will help them to participate in the game of life. Because it is a process, empowerment is something that is achieved over time, not overnight.
Empowering teens is important because empowerment leads to competence and competence is linked to self-esteem (Harter, 1993). Teens with increased competence can become a great resource because they will assume increasing responsibility within the day-to-day activities and in running the overall program.