LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A faith-based program designed to build leaders is working with embattled youth to plant roots in Louisville, Kentucky.

Teenagers and young people under 25 years old are making up a sizeable portion of the city's shooting victims and suspects.

"This is a different level of violence than it was 10 years ago," Joshua Community Connectors CEO Kim Moore said. "It's a lot more vicious than it was 10 years ago. I'm not use to seeing 12- and 13-year-olds with guns and drugs and assault weapons. It's different." 

Due to the violence, DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative selected Louisville and four other cities for a program that provides 15 months of faith-based workshops and training to build leadership and capacity. Ten people in Louisville are participating in the program to drive the mission.

Moore was one of the 10 people selected for Louisville. At Joshua Community Connectors she works with people 16 to 35 on mental health, housing and wrap around services. The goal of the nonprofit is to keep people who have been imprisoned from going back, along with changing the lives of others headed in a wrong direction.

"You want a job making 20 to 30 dollars an hour but you don't have a GED, you have a criminal record and you can't pass a drug test, you have unrealistic expectations," Moore said. "So let me help you get your GED. Let me help you get some treatment to get off drugs, and let's talk about what you're going to do with your life. So I think a lot of people spend time talking about young people and we don't spend enough time talking to them."

Last year, more than 30% of Louisville's murder victims were 25 or younger according to data from the Louisville Metro Police Department and 40% of non-fatal shooting victims this year fall in the same age range. Despite public forums, a new administration and community conversations, the violence hasn't showed any signs of letting up.

"I watch a lot of kids die," Moore said. "Kids I just had a conversation with, they're dead two days later."

Cynthia Hall lost her grandson to violence in Louisville on Saturday. Martel Hall Jr. was shot and killed behind a KFC near 19th and Broadway last Saturday. It's the 4th homicide in her family in eight years and the youngest victim was nine-years old.

"I would've filled up this whole world with tears but I've got to be strong for my kids," Cynthia Hall said. "When (murderers) kill, (they're) killing a mother, siblings, kids. They're not thinking about that."

Martel Hall Jr. was shot just blocks away from Moore's Joshua Community Connectors' building in the Russell neighborhood.

Through DVULI, Moore can network with youth workers in other participating cities like San Antonio, Washington, D.C., Detroit and Portland, Oregon. The class supports each other.

"I had a situation where a kid needed to be relocated, somebody from D.C. called me who is in the cohort in D.C. and said we have a safe house, send him to us if he wants to come," Moore said. "So it's about building relationships and collaboration around the work." 

The collaboration could save lives. 

"I am committed to being a community person for these young people, they need to know how valuable they are, that they're important," Moore said. "I'm committed to stepping into the lives of other people."

Louisville's class graduates on April 15.

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