Let's take the wisdom of the past to calm our current chaos and build infrastructure for the future. Established in 1968 by Queen Mother Falaka the House of Umoja, Inc., the House of Umoja, Inc. has a successful track record of positively transforming the lives of over 3,000 adolescent males. helped to end years of bloody and deadly gang warfare that played out in schoolyards and in the streets of
Philadelphia by moving gang leaders to sign a peace treaty. The peace treaty took the form of the Imani Peace Pact™ which was penned by the late Mr. In 2006 The Imani Peace Pledge™, based on the Imani Peace Pact™, was developed and utilized to help end rising incidences of violence and to reduce the number of persistently dangerous schools in Philadelphia. Universities and institutions that include, but are not limited to, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Prevention and the Center for Disease Control, have sought the expertise of Queen Mother Falaka Fattah and her late husband Mr. David Fattah in the areas of gang reduction, youth programming, and community organizing. Former United States Presidents, The Honorable Bill Clinton, The Honorable Jimmy Carter, and the late Honorable Ronald Reagan have recognized the House Of Umoja, Inc. for its pioneering work which has been documented in published in articles such as A Summons To Life, by Robert Woodson of the American Enterprise Institute in 1981 and The Violent Juvenile Offender by Paul DeMuro and Richard Allison of the National Council On Crime And Delinquency in 1984. The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (NCNE) identified eight characteristics associated with the House of Umoja’s success:
◆ A family-centered organization that acts as the youth’s primary human support system and is based on a participatory model of decision making.
◆ A process of socialization in which at-risk youth develop strong, healthy identities and may even earn the name Fattah, after the House of Umoja’s initiators.
◆ The Adella, a mechanism for conflict resolution and problem-solving that requires the full participation of all members. ◆ Individual learning to organize personal time and space.
◆ An emphasis on the importance of work and a redefinition of the meaning of work associated with virtue.
◆ An emphasis on service to others.
◆ A spiritual or ideological context expressed in common familial rituals.
◆ Leadership training and development.