Java Hope Project focuses on helping chronically unemployed

The Java Hope Project has a hard nut to crack, helping chronically unemployed women become self-sufficient through entrepreneurship.

The Ypsilanti-based non-profit helps women escape poverty through a 3-month training course that takes them from unemployment to running their own coffee stand that could gross as much as $100,000 annually. It sounds like a good idea on paper. Maybe even easy. It's anything but in reality.

"I have to go back and do what the parents didn't teach them to do, like being self-sufficient and believing in themselves," says Brenda Moore, executive director of the Java Hope Project.

The Java Hope Project has been working with women at Coalition on Temporary Shelter (COTS) in Detroit for the past year. The program has had 63 participants. So far three of them of stuck through it, built up professional skills and used them to land jobs. It's a step in a long process that Moore hopes to get a couple of them running their own coffee cart in the next year.

"We have to make sure they have the wherewithal to manage the cart," Moore says.

The program teaches the women, often single mothers, the need for professionalism in the workplace. It also teaches the basic of running a small business in the hope that entrepreneurship will help them break the cycle of poverty.

The Java Hope Project has recently been approved to become an apprentice program by the U.S. Dept of Labor. Moore is exploring the option of partnering with a large local organization or two to grow its reach later this year.

"I think the program will get better with that umbrella over it," Moore says. "It will strengthen the program."

Source: Brenda Moore, executive director of the Java Hope Project
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.