Innovators In Social Enterprise

One of the Details workers removing bricks from a chimney.

Baltimore is fortunate to have an organization like HUMANIM, INC. within its metropolitan area. This organization is a social enterprise, providing social services, job training, working within the school system, forming partnerships with other social enterprise organizations, to fill needs in various niches in which there are people in need. Within the larger organization are smaller programs, which serve various communities.

One of the programs is DETAILS, which provides employment opportunities for individuals who face various barriers to being able to participate in the work force. Their focus is on deconstruction, basically tearing down deteriorating building structures, while utilizing the materials salvaged by selling them to construction companies. That makes what they do an environmentally friendly enterprise, with about 90% of the building materials recycled.



In another sense, though, Details also helps to recycle the lives of those employed by the program. By getting people, who had previously faced barriers to employment, back into the workforce, through their own program, Details enabled their workers to establish trustworthy work records, which would then increase their employablility in other types of enterprises.

Recently, the Details team won a prestigious award from the Maryland Daily Record as Innovator Of The Year, This award recognizes this program as one that has a positive effect on their business, industry, and/or community.

Originally started as a pilot program that was working with the City of Baltimore, the program has now become a model for business leaders to remove blighted and decaying buildings and clear the land for future green space. It also provides training and jobs to those who live in some of Baltimore's underserved neighborhoods, The program is doing so well, that Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Deputy Housing Commissioner Michael Braverman gathered with other officials to declare this program a success.

Mayor Rawlings-Blake stated, "Removing blight, developing green space, and creating jobs through the deconstruction pilot has tremendously impacted this community [1800 block of Etting Street] and others throughout Baltimore. The pilot has been a huge success. I look forward to making it a permanent part of our demolition program."

It's hard to believe that the program only started in April of 2014. In that short time, it has grown from 50 buildings to 63 and still counting. It has provided jobs, complete with training and benefits, to 26 workers, who faced employment barriers. Bernadette Buckson, who is now a crew leader in the program, shared, "This job has meant so much to me. I had the opportunity to start my life all over."

Proud group of Details workers in front of deconstruction project.

This program is giving growth opportunities to community members who need them. They may lack the skills in the beginning, but their willingness and enthusiasm for this organization, which showed it believed in them, has added happiness, independence, and pride in their own capabilities.

One of the workers with some of the salvaged bricks.

Thanks to the information from this article by Humanim: http://www.humanim.com/news/197-details-team-named-innovator-of-the-year-city-pilot-program-declared-a-win-win.

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