Yesterday at Community of Hope AME Church there was a Town Hall Meeting hosted by Russ Parr and the Peace-A-Holics. The topic was on Youth and School Violence in the Metropolitan area which is Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. I am a member of Community of Hope and I was just there to support my church. Well one of the Peace-A-Holic leaders came by asking for help because they were a panelist short, so I offered to be apart. Not really knowing that I was going to be a panelist at the time I was being asked the question, but I didn't mind helping. On the panelist were three teenagers, one male and two females (all from different neighborhoods in Washington D.C.) myself and a Prince George's County Police Officer. The teenagers were the stars of the night if I might say so myself because they experienced being in school violence. I have not experienced in school violence personally but I did know females in High School that did partake in fights in school and out of school. The Police officer was also a very important part of the forum because he deals with situations like school violence daily.
Peace-A-Holics had the forum so that they could get solutions for the youth, because it is now time to save our youth instead of burying them so young. Children are our future and we need them to realize that more than anything else. So the forum started with the radio personality checking into the radio station because they were setting us up to go on the air. The panelist started off by introducing ourselves then the first question was asked:
Question: Where does the beef start? At school or in the neighborhoods?
Answer: First Answer(answered by one of the female panelist)-the beef doesn't just start in the school first, it starts in the neighborhoods then follow you to school and from their to the go-go and from their back into the school on Monday.
Second Answer:(answered by the other female panelist)-like she said it goes from the neighborhoods to the schools to the go-go back to the schools. But it's mostly neighborhood beef that have people scared to come to school.
Question:If you had the opportunity to tell a youth who is in a situation such a school violence what advice would you give them?
Answer: Well me personally I never experienced school violence myself but I hung with girls that you would consider popular and they fought, so some would consider me a punk. But me being a christian in High School I knew how to keep myself out of their drama. So the advice that I would give is to know who your friends are and to not to surround yourself around those type of people.
Question: Are their any solutions that we can give to the youth that lack the love/relationship with their parents?
Answer:(my response)-surround your child with someone that they can cling to. Although our parents suppose to be our example their is always that one person that your child finds more interesting than you. Kinda like a mentor, I had a mentor, don't have them raise your child but it's good for your child to have someone in their life other than yourself.
After those questions were answered a lot of audience members gave great testimonies, advice and solutions. The police officer posed a questioned about what can we do as a community to help the youth in their schools?
One of the females answered "well first we can be greeted at the door of our high school without and attitude, because the security is rude, taking my gum talking bout I know she got something on her. We need better books, the books are ancient..they write they names in them with 89 on it, I wasn't even born yet. We also need teachers who care because I'm serious about my education". After she gave her answer we came up with solutions to help the youth:
Here are the solutions we came up with:
1. Mentor the the Youth
2. Love on the youth(show them that you care)
3. Speak life into the youth(let them know that their is a better life then what they are experiencing now)
4.We as a community need to stick together
5. Men and women step up
6. Church(needs to be the essential part of our community)
So that wrapped up the form and we ended with a prayer from Rev. Tony Lee who is the Community of Hope AME Church Pastor.
The adage "it takes a village to raise a child" is so true because some parents can not do it alone. We all can help in some way.If you can be a mentor to a child of any age please do so, you never know what that child may be lacking in their home.
So I leave you with this quote: " Treat a man the way he appears to be you make him worse, treat a man as he should be you make him better". -Anonymous
Peace
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