Ganging Up for Good

The important lesson was that the cure came from within. Falaka's was not a top-down professional approach. It was successful because she worked with a few young people who became the moral equivalent of antibodies, spreading their healing to others throughout the city.

This experience brought several basic principles home to me. I began to look in other cities for the likes of Sister Fattah and her husband, who had the trust of young people and could call on them to take responsibility. Theirs was a lifelong commitment, not a program. The Fattahs lived in the same neighborhood as the young people they helped. They understood their challenges, and knew how to create good character and values.

It was this experience that led me in 1981 to found the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, to support such neighborhood leaders in their low-income communities. In 1997, I was working with grass-roots organizations in Washington when a 12-year-old boy was killed in violence between warring youth factions in an area called Benning Terrace. Using some of the principles I had learned from the House of Umoja, my organization and a courageous grass-roots group called the Alliance of Concerned Men negotiated a truce between rival groups in Benning Terrace, where some 53 youth deaths had occurred in the previous two years in a five-square-block area. The truce was followed by a program of life skills and counseling, and D.C. Public Housing Receiver David Gilmore offered employment training and jobs. The key to this program has been the involvement of individuals such as those in the alliance -- men who were once part of the problem and now wanted to become positive influences on young people there.

Almost nine years on, there have been no crew-related deaths in Benning Terrace, and we have adapted the model in four other cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas and Milwaukee. We look for a catalytic neighborhood organization and infuse it with technical assistance. In each city, we've established Violence-Free Zones in some of the most violence-plagued schools, where youth advisers undergo training to become hall monitors, mentors and character coaches.

The results are measurable. Over a two-year period after the program was introduced in Dallas, gang violence at Lincoln High School dropped from 34 incidents to one and at Madison High School from 113 to zero.

And here in Washington, Darrin Slade, principal of Fletcher-Johnson K-8 school, said this about the VFZ program: "Three years ago, my school was plagued with fighting. Ambulance and police calls were frequent occurrences. This year, with VFZ Youth Advisors from East Capitol Center for Change present, there have been no incidents. There also has been a dramatic reduction in suspensions because of the youth counselors. They provide strong female and male role models for the students."

If these programs have been successful, why haven't they been embraced more widely by school systems and communities? The fundamental resistance is from people on both the left and the right who argue that these remedies come from "untutored" people -- individuals who do not hold advanced degrees. More responsive, however, are police officers, judges and parents who have seen violence firsthand and know how young people can be influenced by real neighborhood experts.

Add to that the financial incentive that supports the status quo. Some 80 percent of the money spent on poor people and at-risk youth goes to those who provide services. As the problem increases, the funding increases. In my experience, too many people ask not which problems are solvable, but which ones are fundable.

Until we put the goal of saving lives over these institutional interests, we can only expect more shopping center stabbings and more school violence.

Author's e-mail: rwoodson@ncne.com

Robert Woodson is president and founder of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, which provides support and training to combat problems such as youth violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and homelessness.