It was the evening of February 28, 1958. A highly publicized murder trial was underway in a New York City courthouse as the nation watched and awaited the verdict. David Wilkerson, a 26-year-old Pentecostal preacher from Pennsylvania, had made the eight-hour drive from his quiet mountain village to downtown Manhattan for a simple reason: to speak to the seven accused gang members about God’s love and their salvation. At the close of trial proceedings, he rushed to the front of the courtroom and pleaded with the judge for permission to meet the teenage defendants. News media stayed live as Wilkerson unwittingly made himself the source of headline news. The judge resisted the request. He had been receiving death threats during the trial and almost had Wilkerson arrested as a presumed assailant. He ordered Wilkerson never to return to his courtroom.
The refusal inspired Wilkerson’s move to New York City where he began a street ministry to drug addicts and gang members. In the years and months that followed, Wilkerson authored the best-selling book The Cross and the Switchblade and founded Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug rehabilitation program serving troubled youth and adults in the United States. In 1995, Teen Challenge expanded its reach through Global Teen Challenge, overseeing the development of local Teen Challenge programs worldwide.
Wilkerson passed away in a car crash in 2011 at 79 years of age, but the ministry of Teen Challenge continues to grow. Today, Teen Challenge is the largest and most successful non-profit, interdenominational, faith-based program of its kind, operating in 122 countries, with over 1,400 autonomous locations internationally, and continues to grow at a dramatic pace worldwide.
(The Teen Challenge story is told in the best-selling book and movie The Cross and the Switchblade.)
It was in 1982, Teen Challenge Delhi had its beginning. It was started by Rev. Robert Jeyaraj, who initially conducted short term training programs and conducted seminars to prepare workers for the work of Teen Challenge. Later in the year 1998, for the first time Teen Challenge Adult Rehabilitation Center was established by Lalu Varghese. This was a turning point for Teen Challenge Delhi as hundreds of people with life controlling problems were rescued, restored and transformed through rehabilitation programs.
After much waiting, in the year 2009 Teen Challenge was restructured under the leadership of Brice Maddock and later it was registered as a non-profit charitable Society, (Registration Number S/67001/2009). Since then, the agency has been working with people of all castes, creeds and ethnic groups, for their economic, social, moral and educational development, imparting social awareness, counseling, detoxification, prevention of the use of drugs and alcohol, rehabilitation and empowerment of people especially from life-controlling problems among men, women and children.
At present, Teen Challenge Delhi is functioning in Delhi and in the state of Jammu & Kashmir with numerous projects and activities. Today, the organization works towards the upliftment of the weaker sections of the society through projects focused on areas such as drug de-addiction unit, health care activities, immunization camps, HIV/AIDS awareness, income generation programs, vocational & empowerment programs, resource management, poverty alleviation, family planning, women and child development and non-formal education programs.