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OIC, An Overview

Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) is a network of comprehensive employment training and economic development programs across the nation. The first OIC was founded in Philadelphia in 1964. From its beginnings in an abandoned jailhouse, OIC has grown into a movement which in 1980 served disadvantaged and underskilled Americans of all races at 144 operating or funded OIC affiliates.

Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, Inc. (OIC/A) is a national organization which serves local OICs in 42 states, Washington,D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Through a central administrative headquarters in Philadelphia and its nine regional offices, OIC/A provides local affiliates with technical assistance in the areas of program management, fiscal management, and program planning and operations. In addition to operating or funded OICs, there were in 1980 more than 60 organized Interest Groups with the potential to become operating affiliates, including such groups in Puerto Rico. Each local affiliate is independently incorporated and has a volunteer Board of Directors which sets policy and to which the affiliate is accountable. All OIC affiliates are nonprofit and community based.

OIC/A and its affiliates have a combined staff of more than 4,000 men and women working at the national, regional and local levels.

They are involved in a variety of programs for disadvantaged Americans, encompassing employment training, alternative education systems, and community economic development, including housing for the aged and urban revitalization. In sixteen years of operation OICs across the nation have trained over 600,000 persons, and 79% of them are now employed. Statistics show that about one-third of all trainees were on welfare when they came to OIC. OIC/A is joined in the OIC movement by the Opportunities Academy of Management Training, Inc. (OAMT), a diversified management training institution, and by OIC International, which has established training programs in countries around the world.

OIC/A and it local affiliates receive Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) technical assistance and program funds through the United States Department of Labor and state and local CETA prime sponsors. Funding for a variety of special projects is provided by other federal departments and state agencies. Additional funds come from major corporations, which donated nearly $5 million to local affiliates and the national organization in 1980 and from local and state governments, foundations, and individuals.

[[caption]] Classroom Scene [[/caption]]
[[image: photograph of OIC trainees]]

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