The IMANI Project

IMANI is named after one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa that means faith. Faith is used to highlight the ability to extrapolate one’s self and in one’s community.

The IMANI Project ( Intervention Model Advancing New Initiatives) is a 3-year community-based program with the aim of strengthening African American Youth in urban communities. The program was designed to provide health intervention/prevention education with the purpose of reducing the high-risk behavior associated with the transmission of HIV/AIDS/STDs and Alcohol, tobacco and other drugs among African American young people between the ages of 9-22 and their families living in the Northwest Atlanta, Zone 1 community. IMANI has two goals: (1) To use proven strategies and to develop best practice programs that will be self-sustaining through the involvement of peer education in schools and colleges, faith-based organizations and non-traditional businesses within the targeted communities; and (2) To increase the knowledge and comprehension of HIV/AIDS/STDs and alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) for African American youth and their families within the Zone 1 Community.

One of the means used to promote the principles of the IMANI Project is the IMANI Pledge, which states:

IMANI means Faith,
Faith in who I am,
Faith in who I can be,
Faith in knowing that I am drug free,
Faith in my Maker,
My family,
My school,
And my community,
But most of all
Faith in me,
I am, because I say I AM!