Energy Matters’ consumer guide to solar power highlights the unfortunately increasing occurrence of some unscrupulous vendors using the solar power boom to unlawfully rip off consumers; but some who have flouted the law in the past are using solar power to turn their lives around in a positive way – through organisations such as the USA’s Homeboy Industries.
Homeboy Industries traces its roots to “Jobs For A Future” (JFF), a program created in 1988 by Father Gregory Boyle to offer alternatives to gang violence in tough neighbourhoods in Los Angeles. The organisation’s slogan is "nothing stops a bullet like a job".
In only a few years, Homeboy Industries has had an important impact on the Los Angeles gang problem, with young people from over half of the region’s 1,100 known gangs seeking a way out from a life of crime through the organisation.
Homeboy industries offers many work programs, among them accredited training for solar power system installation. According to an article on the Wall Street Journal, the organization pays the USD $131 tuition for each student and it also pays participants an hourly wage of USD $8 while they are participating in the program. Far from being a "pseudo-course", the program demands successful completion of theory work such as calculating the area of a house’s roof and the angle at which solar panels should be mounted, as well as practical training.
A representative from a local solar power installation company expects to hire out of the program as fast as participants complete it and says "these guys are much better trained than many others I have hired."
The success of the program highlights the fact that green collar jobs not only offer a career pathway for today’s students, but hope for those who have strayed far from the path.
