During National Youth Violence Prevention Week, Chicago Public Schools students call for resources
CHICAGO (WLS) -- It's National Youth Violence Prevention Week, and many are reflecting on the mayhem downtown a few weekends ago.
Some Chicago youth outreach organizations are addressing that violence and calling on more resources for those young men and women to create spaces, in schools, for them to share their experiences in a safe and productive environment.
"There are things like gun violence, gang violence and stuff that happens almost every day, and there are kids like my age that experience it and are witnesses to it, and that can really mess a person up because a lot of the time they don't understand it," said Siren Sargent, an eighth grader at Beasley Academic Center.
At just 12 years old, Sargent already speaks with a lifetime of experience. Violence and death have touched her own family.
"I lost one of my cousins to gun violence, and she was killed by more kids. They were like teenagers," Sargent said.
When she thinks about the young people causing havoc downtown, she said it comes down to youth without direction.
"It's kind of sad. 'Cause I don't want people to view us like that, and when kids come out here and do this because they don't know what else to do, it kind of puts that on everybody else," Sargent said.
Sargent is part of the Youth Peace Ambassadors in Motion Program in dozens of Chicago Public Schools, managed by nonprofit The Support Group.
"The more they can have access to constructive programming, that's how you're going to change the lives of these young adults out here who went downtown," said Bennie Henry, co-founder of The Support Group.
Henry said the effort is to provide safe spaces in schools to speak about personal experiences free from judgment, learn conflict resolution and foster peer-to-peer support.
Michael Blalock graduated from the program.
"I've lost at least 10 friends to gun violence, at least 10. And I'm only 24. So when I was their age, I was extremely angry," Blalock said.
He said that pain he carried was channeled into something more, and it can be for young people acting up, too.
"People should view these kids the same way they would view their own kids. So have the same empathy that you'd have for your own child who's going out, doing wrong things; have that same empathy for those kids. Because I feel like it's going to take a village, it's going to take a whole community, to raise these kids," Blalock said.
Henry is asking for more resources from the city and state to get The Support Group conflict resolution curriculum into more schools in the city and beyond.
"Just because you're misguided doesn't mean you're a nuisance to society. And that's why we're here to help them and guide them the right way," said Clarence Cooper, program director with Youth Peace Ambassadors in Motion.
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