Alive & Free is a life-changing program that helps young people in the Bay Area and around the world. Every young person has the potential to succeed. Sadly, violence – which spreads like a disease in our communities – locks up that potential and leaves young people incarcerated and in many cases dead. Alive & Free is the prescription that puts an end to this violence. Young people who have learned the Alive & Free prescription have a new set of life skills to make choices that help them go to college, succeed in life, and give back to their communities. Background Alive & Free is the name of the violence prevention program founded at the Omega Boys Club-a nationally recognized youth development and violence prevention organization headquartered in San Francisco, CA. At the heart of the Alive & Free Prescription™ is the notion that violence is a social disease with an explicit treatment process. Like a medical disease, it is transmitted by the germs of bad information, bad instruction, bad advice, and bad example-only to young people this “bad stuff” looks good. Youth are exposed to these germs via their families, peers and neighborhoods; through music, television, video games, and movies. The disease appears as techniques for survival, when in fact the opposite is true: infected youth do not survive, they only learn how to die or go to prison. The Methodology The “Alive & Free Prescription™” works to change beliefs, attitudes, values and actions that promote violence. Alive & Free identifies the actions that put young people at risk (Risk Factors) the thinking that puts them at risk (Commandments of Violence) and the Rules for Living that promote positive lifestyle choices.