#OneWestSide

Marshall Hatch is not only trying to change the lives of the young men he works with through the MAAFA Redemption Project, but his community as a whole.

MAAFA, a Swahili word for calamity or disaster, is trying to combat exactly that — the calamity of drugs and violence on the West Side of Chicago and its effect on the surrounding community. West Garfield Park,  where MAAFA is based, has the lowest life expectancy of any Chicago neighborhood and ranks first, Hatch said, in potential life loss, a metric for premature death.