Raw talent is an organization based in Richmond, California, their purpose is to prevent gang violence. Their goal is to take youth from the streets of richmond and show them something other to do than sell drugs or any type of gang banging. Raw talent takes Richmond youth and puts them in a safe setting where they can practice poetry or theater. A quality that the people from Raw talent promote is to respect people.
Raw talent has been apart of competitions and performances that they either participated in or hosted. They have participated in multiple countrywide poetry slams, and in some have won the entire thing. Molly Raynor wants teens to do poetry slams like she did when so they can get their anger out in a positive way. Molly explained the background about herself. She said" when I was 15 I did poetry slams." This was interesting because it shows one of the reasons on why Raw talent was created.
A quality that the Raw talent staff have is bravery because the people that participate in the program can be very intimidating because the staff have no idea what the the participants been through. A staff can accidentally offend the participant and end up getting assaulted. Not only do the staff have to have bravery, the participants also have to have bravery because it can be frightening to present your personal work, especially if its something like poetry which can be very personal.
Raw talent uses the strategy of youth participation to help the cause of ending gang violence. This strategy is useful because it lets people know that the issue is effecting everyone, not just a certain group of people.