Harlem Children's Zone

The Harlem Children’s Zone walks hand in hand with tens of thousands of young people and families in Central Harlem on their journey from the cradle to college to career.

When children don’t have access to good schools and healthy, safe learning environments, they can get stuck in a cycle of poverty. To break the cycle, we can’t tackle just one of these problems, so the Harlem Children’s Zone uses an innovative, comprehensive approach to support both children and families every step of the way—in school, at home and in the community.

From our work in local public schools and our two K-12 charter schools, to our Healthy Harlem wellness initiative, HCZ goes beyond education to provide more than 14,000 students every year the academic, emotional/social and career supports they need to stay on the path to graduating college and achieving their dreams.

HCZ has a generation of proof that our comprehensive approach works. The unprecedented scale of work and its documented successes have led hundreds of communities from around the world to send delegations to learn how to replicate our work and attracted attention from the media, including 60 Minutes, Forbes and The New York Times, which called HCZ “one of the most ambitious social-science experiments of our time.”
We’re not just helping a few kids beat the odds. We’re changing the odds for the entire Harlem community for good. And we’re sharing what we’ve learned as a model for communities around the country—changing the lives of millions, and transforming the way we fight poverty in America.