About Jinna Development Corporation (JCORP)

Jinna Community Outreach and Relationships Partnership (JCORP) is an African-American, faith-based organization whose mission is to enhance the lives of St. Louis youth. JCORP was formed in 2000 as a response to the escalating gang problem in St. Louis, as well as, the realization that the physical and spiritual needs of the community’s youth were not being adequately addressed by any other organization.

JCORP was started by members of the Masjid Al-Mu-Minun Islamic Center in the JefVanderLou neighborhood. While JCORP serves St. Louis youth of all denominations and races, its mission is shaped by the Five Pillars of Islam: Belief in G'd, Prayer ,Charity, Fasting, and Pilgrimage. What JCORP hopes to instill in St. Louis’s youth are a set of values different from those of the media culture to which they are incessantly exposed. Unlike the youth portrayed in rock and rap videos who exhibit nothing but excess and self-indulgence, the youth which JCORP want to produce are characterized by purpose and a sense of dedication to the community, .whose lives manifest self-discipline and self-awareness.

JCORP is ideally prepared to continue and expand its work with St. Louis youth. Hakim A. Aleem, the Executive Director of JCORP has been working with community youth for over twenty five years. Not only does he have extensive experience working with kids of all ages in organized sports, he has had to witness the horrors of gangs and drugs with two of his own children. Moreover, because many of the facilitators of JCORP’s programs are certified Gang Specialist, they can relate with many of the pre-teens who are experimenting with a gang lifestyle in ways that only they can. As opposed to programs operated by large agencies, JCORP is of the community and located in the community. Consequently, it has a better sense of what the community needs and what will be successful in the community.