Integra Wellness Center, a premier holistic healing and well-being center, brings Fr. Greg Boyle, the renowned Jesuit founder of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program, to the Philippines. Fr. Boyle will give a talk about “Choosing Hope: Stories from Homeboy Industries” on September 6, 2024, at 9 a.m., at the Hyundai Hall, Ateneo Areté, and facilitate “The Power of Boundless Compassion: A Spirituality of Radical Kinship” retreat at Rosary Hills, Silang, Cavite from September 6 to 8. Interested participants may visit www.facebook.com/fr.greg.mnl for more details.
Fr. Boyle founded Homeboy Industries in 1988 in Los Angeles during the “decade of death,” a time of escalating gang violence. Instead of the prevailing strategies of suppression and mass incarceration, Fr. Boyle and his community chose to treat gang members as human beings capable of change, quite a radical approach. Today, the organization supports over 10,000 former gang members rebuilding their lives, offering various services, including counseling, tattoo removal, legal assistance, and job training. Homeboy Industries, a $40 million enterprise with 13 social businesses such as Homeboy Bakery and Homegirl Café, continues to play a pivotal role in building safer and healthier communities in Los Angeles.
Most recently, Fr. Boyle was conferred the 2024 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’s highest civilian honor, by President Joseph Biden. The Los Angeles City Council issued a proclamation establishing May 19 as Father Greg Boyle Day. He has received the California Peace Prize and has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. President Barack Obama named him a Champion of Change in 2014 and was awarded the 2017 University of Notre Dame Laetare Medal, the most prestigious honor given to American Catholics. In 2020, Homeboy Industries won the Hilton Humanitarian Prize, recognizing the organization’s work for over three decades.
Fr. Boyle’s mission aligns with Integra Wellness Center’s commitment to guiding individuals toward holistic growth, sparking hope, and inspiring community changes. Similar to how Homeboy Industries addresses the problem of violence by helping gang members liberate themselves from their past, Integra assists individuals in releasing trauma, reprogramming their minds, and bettering themselves through its services.
“At Integra, individual transformation is critical to community transformation. Personal healing creates a ripple effect, positively impacting families, neighborhoods, and society by breaking the cycles of trauma and violence,” Elaine Kahn, founder of Integra Wellness Center, said. “In my visits to Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, I witnessed firsthand the profound impact of Fr. Boyle’s work on transforming individuals through compassion, which resonates deeply with our values at Integra.”
Integra Wellness Center promotes physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being through its Conscious Rebirth Program, Self-Mastery Coaching, Ayurvedic therapies, and other customized holistic wellness programs.