The People Empowering People program builds on strengths of limited-resource people, most of whom are parents, providing opportunities and resources for people to gain skills while they take greater control of their own lives. The program recognizes the unique gifts and capacities of each person and encourages participants to express their own issues and how they see them. The program emphasizes the connection between individual and community action. Individual change is encouraged in PEP through training sessions, trust-team building exercises and discussions.
PEP supports community action through participants' projects to change and improve community.
It has meant fewer total participants completing the training but has enabled the group to work together with a common vision. The PEP project for 1998 was to renovate the once-uninhabitable community room of High Ridge Gardens and to build a children's library. In all, over 5,000 books were collected. Three thousand books are shelved in the library and the rest were distributed to other low-income neighborhoods and sites The library now has over 65 cardholders. She will work for one year recruiting volunteers and strengthening the programming at the library.