Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America

The Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America (OICA) is a national network of employment and training centers which serve the hard core poor and unemployed.

The Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America was founded in 1964 by Reverend Leon Howard Sullivan in an old abandoned jailhouse at 19th and Oxford Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The organization worked to help those individuals with special barriers to employment, such as ex-offenders, former alcoholics and drug abusers, high school drop-outs, veterans, older workers and women. The OICA philosophy and concept embraced an innovative system of teaching basic literary skills, combined with supportive counseling, referral services and short non-graded courses of training for the functional occupational trades.

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