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The ethos of peace powers Avenue Nook Sources (SCR), an anti-violence nonprofit group primarily based in central Harlem. “Peace and blessings” is a typical greeting utilized by each employees and passersby, the message “I Am Peace” is emblazoned on the employees’s T-shirts, and daring black letters spelling out “Converse Peace Ahead” adorn the again wall of one of many group’s two buildings on 145th Avenue.
The neighboring constructing hosts the workplace of Iesha Sekou, founder and CEO of SCR, however Sekou herself is extra more likely to be discovered assembly together with her employees subsequent door, greeting guests on the benches outdoors, or sitting in one in all SCRs’ vans en path to the myriad occasions or conferences that make up her hectic each day schedule.
Since founding the nonprofit in 2005, Sekou has overseen its enlargement to supply a wide range of companies, together with summer season and afterschool applications for youth, a strong violence intervention program, authorized assist and housing referrals, and a month-to-month open mic evening known as the Peace Café. It’s all geared toward selling peace in a neighborhood that has lengthy suffered from the devastating penalties of poverty and violence that plague lots of New York’s Black and brown neighborhoods because of many years of disinvestment.
In some ways, SCR represents the brand new face of violence prevention rising in New York Metropolis. Analysis has proven that community-based nonprofits partly contributed to the decline in violence in American cities between the Nineties and the 2010s, and town’s current funding in anti-violence initiatives has put these teams on the heart of a brand new public security infrastructure to deal with gun violence, alongside policing.
Whereas her group has benefited from this newly accessible funding, Sekou would be the first to inform you that none of this help got here and not using a battle, one which continues to this present day.
Beginnings of Avenue Nook Sources
Avenue Nook Sources emerged from Sekou’s earlier group work in Harlem—extra particularly, from her brownstone on 136th Avenue, the place she lived for round 30 years. Sekou made the house a secure haven for younger individuals, particularly those that had run away from house and have been weak to violence.
“I had the everyday brownstone stoop, and youngsters would sit up on the railing, they’d sit on the stoop, they’d sit within the downstairs backyard space [where] I’d put some chairs down…my home was the home,” Sekou defined, recalling the varied actions she organized, like homework and faculty software periods, weekend brunch, and Kwanzaa celebrations.
This type of group organizing got here naturally to Sekou, who grew up in an activist family. Her mom often tasked her with making indicators for the varied protests they attended. After spending a few decade in Florida to attend faculty and work in grownup training, Sekou moved again to New York in 1984.
She first encountered the size of the gun violence disaster in Harlem when she started working at a collection of welfare-to-work applications as an educator, the place lots of her shoppers have been younger moms.
“They have been shedding their sons. Various younger individuals have been getting shot and killed and shedding life. And I used to be serving to these ladies to bury their kids,” Sekou mentioned.
Alarmed by the devastating toll of this violence and annoyed by the failure of current applications to deal with it, Sekou’s personal mom impressed her to create her group.
“One of many issues my mom mentioned was that, whenever you see one thing that you simply wish to see completely different, you then be the particular person to make it completely different,” she mentioned.
Whereas Sekou mentioned beginning a corporation from scratch initially appeared “far-fetched,” her mom identified that she already had the seeds of a corporation by means of her home. They selected the identify Avenue Nook Sources as a result of it spoke to how Sekou had constructed an area the place younger individuals might hang around, really feel secure, and entry sources to safe a greater future.
Preventing for funding
In its early years, SCR operated with very restricted funding, principally from small donations. Sekou targeted her consideration on younger individuals, drawing on her background in training and expertise operating youth summer season applications. She organized actions like video games of chess, or dance and music workshops.
She additionally sought to intervene in opposition to violence extra straight. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, she and some different neighborhood residents stood on the nook of 129th Avenue and Seventh Avenue, throughout the road from St. Nicholas housing.
“We have been on the market to disrupt the violence. To speak to younger individuals, to get them to consider their conduct,” Sekou mentioned. “Had been there weapons? Sure. Did we take weapons? We didn’t bodily seize the gun and take it, however they turned in weapons to us.”
Sekou additionally attended group board conferences in hopes of securing extra funding, however her frustration at authorities inaction meant she was typically seen as disruptive and hostile by these whom she was asking for assist.
“She’d are available like a volcano, exploding with lava!” recalled Inez Dickens, a Metropolis Councilmember on the time who turned Sekou’s ally. “Generally it was laborious to come up with that volcano as a result of she could be so offended as a result of individuals weren’t listening. And I wished her to grasp: You’re attempting to get funding… It doesn’t imply [being] meek. It doesn’t imply being humble. Nevertheless it means you are available stating your details, stating your case, and why your program is critical.”
Dickens helped Sekou safe funding from the Metropolis Council beginning round 2013, a few of which was used to determine a media heart at Harlem Renaissance Excessive Faculty in 2014.
Across the identical time, town started providing grant cash for anti-violence initiatives like Treatment Violence, a public health-based strategy to violence prevention that employs credible messengers—individuals from the neighborhood with expertise of gun and gang violence—to work as violence interrupters. In 2014, town established the Disaster Administration System to systematize this public well being strategy. Together with different group organizations, SCR joined this system.
“For us, the Disaster Administration System was a solution to give this a reputation—the work that we do,” Sekou mentioned.
In recent times, town has invested more cash into the Disaster Administration System, which consists of greater than 50 community-based organizations and has a finances of $86 million.
Consultants say that measuring the consequences of this system is tough, as a result of it may be laborious to isolate the causes of fluctuations in gun violence at a neighborhood stage, and every Treatment Violence program differs barely. However researchers at John Jay Faculty of Legal Justice who studied this system discovered that it’s a “promising mannequin” for addressing group gun violence. Their examine confirmed that neighborhoods with CMS websites had a steeper decline in gun violence and better reductions in social norms supporting violence in comparison with areas with out websites.
“I feel it’s been confirmed sufficient to know that it’s an excellent funding for native governments as a complement to regulation enforcement,” mentioned the examine’s co-author, Jeffery Butts. “[These programs] don’t need to be magic options. They simply have to assist contribute to public security, and so they pay for themselves. They usually met that customary.”
Talking peace ahead
When Josh Marte first got here to Avenue Nook Sources 5 years in the past, he had simply accomplished a brief stint in jail and was in search of a approach out of the drug dealing and gang actions he had engaged in for a lot of his life.
Marte grew up in Harlem, and mentioned that lots of his relations dealt medication and carried weapons as a method of survival. However Marte mentioned he by no means participated till he had a traumatic encounter with the police when he was round 14 years previous. One snowy day, he and his cousin have been on their solution to college when two cops stopped and searched them.
“[They] dumped my bookbag out, [roughed] me up. Made me and my cousin step out of our sneakers to look the underside of our socks, saying we had medication on us…Then the officer goes and searches the non-public areas of us. And I…felt very violated,” he recalled.
Marte mentioned the expertise was so traumatizing that he turned to road life as a solution to stop himself from being victimized once more. The incident elevated his standing amongst older members in the neighborhood who had confronted comparable remedy from police.
“When the police got here and harassed me, now I wind up being accepted by them, and now I’m again doing it to others. I’m not going to be the sufferer, I don’t wish to be the sufferer, so I’m victimizing,” he defined.
Marte first got here to SCR in search of a upkeep job, however after he spent just a few weeks across the group, Sekou determined to rent him as a violence interrupter.
Now a senior member of the Converse Peace Ahead violence interruption group, Marte regards Sekou as a mentor, and SCR as a spot that helped him see past a cycle of violence and retaliation.
On a heat and sunny afternoon in early October, Marte and 4 SCR employees members gathered outdoors of SCR’s places of work, making ready to move out on a neighborhood canvas. 3 times per day, 5 days every week, the employees walks by means of an space that stretches from 145th Avenue to 137th Avenue, between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Malcolm X Boulevards. Together with program supervisor Mike Saylor, Marte typically leads these canvases.
After setting off, they first stopped about 30 ft away as they handed by the gasoline station throughout the road. A person pumping gasoline acknowledged them and began speaking to the group, saying “Y’all do nice work.” A couple of extra ft down the street, the group paused once more. This time, a younger man stopped them to elucidate that he was in search of a job. Javon Griffin, one other group member, handed him one of many playing cards that every one the employees keep on canvases. Referred to as “public training,” or “pub-ed,” these pamphlets include details about the companies SCR presents in addition to recommendation on learn how to de-escalate tense conditions.
As we continued alongside, Marte defined that along with participating individuals they encounter by likelihood, the group additionally makes use of the canvases to watch neighborhood hotspots, like sure parks or corners, in addition to buildings which can be hangout spots for gang members. Constructing connections with these group members is vital to de-escalating potential conflicts, Marte mentioned.
If he hears a few battle between people, for instance, he speaks to each individuals concerned, to persuade each that the opposite facet doesn’t need hassle. He then arranges for the 2 to satisfy.
“I don’t care if [they] have a fistfight. I’ll take that lack of a fistfight. However to cease that capturing and that stabbing, we’ve to discover a solution to get them to come back collectively, to get them to grasp that we’re all on the identical boat,” he mentioned.
For conflicts between bigger teams, SCR employs different methods, like “occupying” the nook the place a gaggle gathers, providing sources to these concerned, and even motivating them to come back to their places of work with present playing cards.
After about quarter-hour, the group arrived at Mott Corridor Excessive Faculty. The employees have been there to supply “secure passage,” which they observe at a handful of Harlem faculties on a rotating foundation throughout dismissal time. Because the exiting college students streamed out of the constructing, the employees fanned out to greet them. Two arrange between the exit gates and the close by subway station entrance. The opposite three continued down the block, stopping on the nook the place college students typically collect after NYPD college security brokers have ushered them away from the varsity’s entrance.
On that day, the latter group’s positioning was fortuitous, as a result of a battle between two ladies broke out on the nook. Marte efficiently intervened earlier than sending these concerned house. All 5 employees then gathered on the nook to watch the realm. As tensions calmed, the employees resumed handing out pub-ed to college students as they handed by, alerting them to SCR’s after-school program.
About 20 minutes later, although, Marte acquired a name. A stabbing sufferer had simply been delivered to the close by Harlem Hospital. SCR companions with the hospital in what is called hospital-based violence intervention. By means of this system, which operates in a number of hospitals all through town, the employees reply to all incidents involving victims of capturing, stabbing, or violent assaults delivered to Harlem Hospital.
The hospital is a well-recognized place for Marte. Since his childhood, his mom has labored there as a nurse, treating trauma sufferers, together with those that’ve been shot or stabbed. Marte’s position includes offering a special remedy to those victims and their households: ensuring they really feel secure, providing them sources, and inspiring them to not retaliate.
On this case, the sufferer was a 16-year-old boy. After talking with the boy and his household, and getting his quantity, Marte and the group continued on the canvas. Suspicious that the incident was gang-related, Marte deliberate to comply with up the subsequent day.
For the canvas’s closing stretch, Marte made some extent of stopping by native outlets, whose employees can present key details about group dynamics. One restaurant proprietor was significantly obsessed with assembly the employees, stopping the group for a 5-minute chat and taking a handful of pub-ed.
The canvas wrapped up at Normal Charles Younger Playground, about 2 minutes away from SCR’s places of work. The playground is a frequent cease for the employees, and so they relaxed a bit as they greeted acquainted faces and launched themselves to these they didn’t but know. “We’d like extra of this,” one girl mentioned when handed a pub-ed card.
Challenges confronted by violence interrupters
“Right here in Harlem, we are saying Superman doesn’t have a cape, he has an ‘I Am Peace’ shirt on,” Marte mentioned, previewing a poem he hopes to carry out on the Peace Café.
The violence interrupters have signed themselves up for work that’s bodily and mentally draining, and harmful. The interrupters obtain intensive coaching in battle de-escalation, mediation, and self-defense. Additionally they obtain psychological well being care by means of one-on-one and group remedy periods—however the work is by nature traumatic.
Each Saylor and Marte recalled separate incidents when the group had been known as in to interrupt up a battle between two giant teams. Whereas they initially succeeded in de-escalating the state of affairs, a few individuals from the battle broke off and commenced letting off pictures just a few blocks away.
On this state of affairs, the interrupters should stand again and await regulation enforcement and emergency companies to reach.
“We don’t have a gun, we don’t have a vest, we don’t have even some handcuffs,” Marte mentioned. “At that time, the violence is occurring…You needed to let or not it’s.”
The work can take its toll. Marte determined to take a break when, after a day when he needed to converse with seven victims on the hospital, he realized he couldn’t give the group the eye they deserved.
“I used to be addressing the victims: sufferer primary, sufferer quantity two, sufferer quantity three. And to me, it was nearly like, so insensitive,” he mentioned. “I wasn’t now not giving my all or my greatest to who I used to be coping with. And I’d by no means rob the group like that.”
After a six-month break, Marte returned to the job this summer season reenergized. However these challenges reveal the necessity for extra sources to make the violence interruption work extra sustainable. Sekou mentioned she’d prefer to have extra hospital responders “in order that the employees who reply don’t need to cope with trauma 3 times in at some point.”
And though SCR will not be the one Treatment Violence web site in Harlem (SAVE Harlem additionally operates in a bit of East Harlem), the technique as a complete will not be established in each neighborhood, and its $86 million finances is miniscule in comparison with the NYPD’s $10.8 billion finances.
“The factor that makes communities secure don’t have anything to do with patrol vehicles and badges. [It’s] concerning the power of the neighborhood, financial alternatives, housing, faculties, medical care—all of the stuff that wealthy individuals take with no consideration. That’s the way you construct a robust group and make security. However the problem is to get public officers to truly care about that,” mentioned Jeffery Butts of John Jay Faculty.
Sekou additionally believes that police play a extra reactive than preventive position in addressing violence. SCR maintains what they describe as a one-way relationship with the police: to protect their credibility, they by no means provide police with data on the people they work with. However they’re receptive to performing on data the police give them.
For instance, generally the police will attain out to the workplace in the event that they obtain complaints about youth within the neighborhood. Fairly than creating additional disruption by making arrests, they may ask SCR employees to deal with the state of affairs.
Sekou has additionally constructed relationships with police leaders, like NYPD’s present Chief of Coaching, Olufunmilola Obé, who was the previous Manhattan North Borough commander. Obé mentioned that though the NYPD and SCR didn’t have a “good relationship,” she valued working with the group to deal with youth gun violence.
“I’d go to [Sekou] all the time and say, that is what we see. Are you able to assist me?… In order that we don’t have one other child lifeless, we don’t have retaliation,” she defined. “And he or she was all the time very profitable in serving to us quell no matter issues we had.”
Lasting affect: SCR’s youth programming
When Sekou is requested concerning the affect of her work on younger individuals, she begins to tear up.
“It overwhelms me,” she mentioned of operating into previous individuals. “Generally I stroll away with slightly tear after I see a teen [who] was struggling, and I helped them or we helped them, and so they’re doing one thing I didn’t count on them to do.”
Saylor mentioned the youth program presently serves round 30 children, ages 14 to 21, from a variety of backgrounds, together with those that have a historical past of violence or are deemed at-risk, who typically “have some issues occurring of their lives, the place they don’t know learn how to discuss it, get assist for it, [or] plan their life forward.”
By giving youth structured actions the place they may in any other case be unsupervised, and offering monetary help within the type of stipends, SCR hopes they will steer children away from violent conduct. Certainly, analysis has proven that afterschool applications can scale back violence.
However SCR’s restricted measurement means they will’t attain everybody—a undeniable fact that turns into clear with each capturing.
“[I’m] all the time occupied with how might we’ve stopped this capturing, or this child from dying? I’m all the time occupied with what could possibly be executed, what extra [we] might do,” Sekou mentioned.
Her subsequent objective as a part of this imaginative and prescient is to safe a constructing that may serve and home weak youth. She says it could be like a bigger scale model of her brownstone house, the place SCR bought its begin.
“That’s the place I developed my imaginative and prescient for this,” she mentioned. “We’d like a spot the place younger individuals can come and keep…and to have the ability to have a door that we are able to open previous midnight, when [they] really feel uncomfortable and they should discuss and so they really feel like they wish to be concerned in an act of violence.”
Shannon Chaffers is a Report for America corps member who writes about gun violence for the Amsterdam Information. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps preserve her writing tales like this one; please think about making a tax-deductible present of any quantity at this time by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
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