After Corbu

No, it’s not a new catholic rock band. Father Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, whose mission is to:

…to assist at-risk and former gang involved youth to become contributing members of our community through a variety of services in response to their multiple needs. Free programs — including counseling, education, tattoo removal, job training and job placement — enable young people to redirect their lives and provide them with hope for their futures.

Excellent organization, which features a quality cafe in East LA, whose food I highly recommend (the service is iffy, but you got to make allowance for the fact that the waiters are in the process if learning their trade.) This is a particularly important effort in a city whose gang policy has been stuck in Operation Hammer mode for years, with little attempt at addressing the underlying structural causes. Civil society has had to take up the slack, and Homeboy Industries has been one of the wonderful success stories of this effort. It’ll be exciting to see the results of these continued efforts and the recent improvement of LAPD policy re: gang interventionists.

Anyway, what prompted this is Good Magazine, who, as part of their continuing effort to be the ‘zine of all things of interest to me, has a wonderful profile of Father G. Check it out.