AT NO COST TO YOU, GET FUNDING FOR We Have a Purpose LLC WHEN YOU:
Buy a Home / Sell a Home / Lease Commercial Property

Learn how it works

Your Future Home Purchase Can Help At-Risk Youth

As a member of Investing In Communities®, We Have A Purpose (WHAP) can receive funding as a result of any brokered real estate transaction – home sales, home purchases, or commercial leases. As more supporters use this platform, before engaging a real estate agent, WHAP will have more resources to provide the interventions to improve the life trajectories of at-risk youth.

Mission, Vision, and Accomplishments

We Have a Purpose Inc. (WHAP) is unique grass roots organization. Because of the resilience, WHAP is able to pursue five important philosophies through its mission.   The philosophies are safety, prevention, intervention, empowerment, and success. WHAP aims to provide a safe environment by decreasing the number of delinquent juveniles and increasing the number of successful, positive youth in the community. WHAP utilizes prevention to educate and provide awareness to the youth, therefore making positive, healthy decisions will be the norm. Some of the youth WHAP serves need to be redirected from the path of risky activities they have become involved in that could lead to the school-to-prison pipeline or teenage parenthood. Therefore, WHAP intervenes by providing services such as counseling, anger management, and teen parenting courses. It is of great benefit that a youth who lacks support and feels defeated, is given a sense of hope through being empowered by someone who genuinely cares about their well-being. When our youth succeed our program is successful. WHAP teaches the youth that they are capable of achieving anything through hard work and determination. In the first year of operation, there was near 50% reduction in the number of juveniles the judge was seeing. That is success and a major accomplishment that WHAP couldn’t have done without the support from the local juvenile justice department and the community. WHAP aims to continue to provide effective services to our youth and their families. WHAP will expand their teen parenthood department by providing housing opportunities.  

Shifting the Narrative; Changing Mindsets

The problem WHAP is trying to solve is shifting the narrative to focus on tools and interventions that will support positive shifts in mindset and attitudes of youth, rather than focusing on the behaviors and attitudes they hold that are often a result of environment and systems out of their control. A critical component of narrative change is ensuring that the narrative focuses less on individuals and more on the systems that the individuals interact with. In the case of the youth in WHAP’s program, many are faced with multiple barriers to success that stem from childhood trauma, poverty, and, of course, the justice system, that has a long history of disproportionate impact on people and youth of color by design. A young person who is getting molested at home, witnessing domestic violence, and/or having the urge to be a part of a gang to feel protected is focusing on how to survive, not on the algebraic equation or what are the eight parts of speech. This behavior leads to the justice system. A child raised by a teen parent who lacked opportunities will continue to repeat the cycle if the parent was never given the proper resources as a parent to be successful. That cycle is called poverty. Each risky behavior a youth encounters can lead to the school-to- prison pipeline. The school-to-prison pipeline is a huge problem that contributes to mass incarceration.

History of WHAP

We Have a Purpose Inc. was founded by Tiesha (Williams) Bryant in November of 2014. After Bryant graduated from Florida A&M University May 2014, she wanted to return home to Russell County, AL to implement everything she learned in college. Bryant’s founding board members were very supportive and hit the ground running. Bryant held a meeting with the state representative to present her program, who was in total agreement with the need for the program in the community.  WHAP received its first referral November 24, 2014.  WHAP has developed a partnership with the local department of human resources to provide family resources to at-risk families. WHAP continues to host events in the community to build awareness.

WHAP Programs

Our important programs are restorative practices. We take a deep look at the systems and practices within the school setting as the root cause of how easy it is for youth to transition from school to the juvenile justice system. The program consist of three phases: Prevention (Phase 1); Intervention (Phase 2); and Postvention (Phase 3). The prevention programs will provide teen awareness rallies in the community, mentors to the youth, and life skill educational courses within the schools. We Have a Purpose intervention programs will provide mentors, teen parent coaching and a Civil Citation Program. The teen parent coaching offers parenting courses for teen parents. The Civil Citation program will allow the youth to have early intervention, case management, school monitoring, counseling, education, empowerment, community resources, and support to redirect qualified juvenile misdemeanor offenders from the juvenile justice system. The program is designed to reduce the juvenile crime rate in the community and allow the youth to take responsibility for their actions without having a criminal record. The youth will be empowered to make healthy choices, so they are not left in the hands of oppressive systems that are not built for their success. The postvention program will provide mentors, counseling, education, empowerment, and community resources to youth who are already intertwined with the juvenile justice system and who are subject to having a difficult time transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. 

When You Purchase, Sell, or Lease Real Estate, You Can Support WHAP

At no cost to themselves, anyone who cares improving the lives of at-risk youth can turn virtually any brokered real estate transaction into funding for We Have a Purpose. For example, the purchase or sale of a $300,000 home can result in about $1,300 of free funding. Support WHAP’s mission by using IIC’s free platform to make arrangements with an agent you already have in mind. Or use IIC to find and choose among real estate agents that are appropriate for the specifics of your residential or commercial real estate needs.