I thought this article from Grist was pretty good. Its a model followed by Bikes Not Bombs, also Boston Bikes, and Hub on wheels. All to great results. I would go one further and say that if you want to empower anyone give them a bicycle. Its basically free/low cost transportation, and in a city like Boston that could be the difference between being able to take a job or not. Also having a bicycle saves you a significant amount of money on T-passes, gas, insurance, etc, which is also very important to lower income people.
Not only that but the sense of empowerment can go a long way towards giving people the confidence to thrive when they may be facing challenges.
Cycling has a reputation for being a white man’s sport, hobby, and mode of transportation. It’s an image rooted in truth — white people accounted for about 80 percent of the cycling population in the U.S. as of 2009 — but it’s far from a complete picture. From 2001 to 2009, the rates of cycling among African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians grew far more than among whites.
Ed Ewing is working hard to keep that trend going. He’s the director of diversity and inclusion for the Cascade Bicycle Club and co-founder of the Major Taylor Project, a program that uses cycling to empower underserved youth in the Seattle area. The program is named after Major Taylor, the first African-American to win a cycling world championship race.
I sat down with Ewing at his office to talk about his work, his history in bike racing, racism he’s experienced as an African American cyclist, the importance of diversity, inclusion, and equity in cycling and bike advocacy, and much more. Through the course of our conversation, Ewing dove deep. He discussed the systemic issues of race and discrimination, policies like neighborhood redlining, and poverty that shape the lives of the students he works — and he explained how cycling is connected to all of it.
Add to Reddit. 
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.