Amachi

Amachi is a collaborative effort to provide mentoring to a very special group of Philadelphia's children and youth- those with a parent currently or formerly incarcerated.

Amachi is a partnership of churches, the Big Brothers/ Big Sisters Association, the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society and the Robert A. Fox Leadership program at the University of Pennsylvania, and public/private ventures.

Amachi's goal is twofold: to assist these specific children and youth in achieving their highest potential by engaging them in transformational mentoring relationships with people of faith; and to identify, evaluate and report to policy leaders, public officials and funders the most effective strategies and practices of urban faith-based mentoring.

Amachi will work with a carefully selected group of Philadelphia churches to recruit and support caring adult volunteers, who will then serve as mentors to the targeted children and youth. Working within the historic mission of the church, Amachi will provide mentors with the highest quality training and support. Thus Amachi hopes to strengthen the church volunteers' ability to maintain long-term transformational relationships with the children and youth. Click here to view mentoring in action.

Amachi mentoring takes place in one of three contexts: school-based one-on-one mentoring, traditional community-based one-on-one mentoring and church-based group mentoring.

Amachi's aim is to serve all prisoners' children living in Philadelphia.

For more information about the Amachi program, please visit their website, call Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) at 215.557.4400, or email w.goode@ppv.org