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Our Initiative: Building a community where everyone can live well.

Mission

BridgesICT connects people to education and resources to transform individuals, institutions, communities and policies to raise the quality of life for all.

Vision

BridgesICT aspires to build a comprehensive initiative to address and reduce poverty and its effects community wide.

A Poverty Reduction Initiative

BridgesICT, a HopeNet Initiative, is a citywide, community-based effort that educates the whole community about the causes of poverty and the resources everyone needs to live well.

The initiative educates the well-resourced entities in Wichita—individuals, institutions, and other organizations—on ways they can better serve the underserved in our community.

This model empowers people in the community to surround individuals and families facing tough challenges like low-income work, unstable housing, and limited access to opportunity. Resourced participants surround the under-resourced as they build long-term stability—knowing that escaping poverty takes consistent effort over five to seven years. 

That’s why our focus is on lasting change.

Key Functions

BridgesICT engages the community through four key actions: We invite partners to join the movement, train them to deliver support, oversee progress using Thrive Lights data tools, and provide care to those doing the work. 

BridgesICT has a bold goal: to bring 10 Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-By World classes to at least 10 of Wichita’s most under-resourced ZIP codes over the next 10 years. This “10–10–10” strategy is rooted in the nationally recognized Bridges Out of Poverty model developed by aha! Process and embedded into our city through partnerships with financial institutions, churches, schools, nonprofits, and city leaders who all understand and commit to the Bridges Model

Our Pillars

Bridges Out of Poverty

This one-day workshop for the well-resourced helps participants to better understand the complexities of poverty and points towards ways to address and reduce it as a community.

Getting Ahead

This program for the under-resourced empowers them to investigate and address barriers that keep them from getting ahead.

Staying Ahead

This part of the initiative connects the BridgesOut of Poverty-educated community and Getting Ahead graduates. It mobilizes stable community members and organizations to walk alongside Getting Ahead graduates while they move toward stability.