[ad_1]
Warm in the afternoon, two 16-year-old boys from North Philadelphia signed a contract. Writing their names on a piece of paper, they made a promise to call a truce.
In the months leading up to this moment, the teenagers were engaged in a duel. Messages were circulating between phones, threatening social media inboxes. Eventually, the two met at a nearby Six Flags. There, a boy gave an enemy warning: Next, he would bring a gun.
Alisha Corley, one of the boys ’mothers, was shocked when she learned of the clashes. He was just 16 years old when he tragically lost his 5-year-old daughter by a gun.
For families like Corley in North Philly, gun violence is part of everyday life. In a sense, the city serves as the microcosm of a larger-scale public health crisis. From September, In the US, 14,516 people have lost their lives as a result of guns this year, putting it on the path to being the deadliest of the 2021s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black and young people They are 20 times more likely rather than killing their white couple with a firearm.
Desperate not to turn his son into a statistician, Corley sought a way to protect himself. he landed Philly Truce, an app for iOS and Android that allows Philadelphians in crisis to hit the “receive help” button. Thus, users connect with trained mediators who provide a variety of services, including empathic listening, referral to broad services (e.g., mental health care), and conflict intervention. The app offers a trauma-informed alternative to contacting police, which in some cases can escalate violence.
By connecting to the program, Corley gained access to free mediation services, ultimately allowing her son to stay calm with the other boy. After listening to each other, they realized that the teenagers were more similar than different. Threats of intimidation and violence paved the way for open dialogue and understanding. At the end of the meeting, they agreed on a peace contract: a Philly Truce.
The main leaders behind this exchange are Steven Pickens and Mazzie Casher, North Philly births, friends and creators of the Philly Truce app. Pickens, the first responder for local firefighters, and Casher, a hip-hop artist, met at the institute three decades ago. Today, the two men are 40 years old and have become the mainstay of the local Black community.
“In some parts of Philadelphia, people are incarcerated in their homes,” Pickens explained. “People need to be careful to sit on their stairs in certain neighborhoods.”
For most of their lives, Casher and Pickens felt that gun violence was essential. “We were left with no hope. We were blown away, and somehow accepted the narrative as it is in the city. This is between blacks and browns, between poor people and the police, ”says Casher. Like many people who have experienced the repercussions of complex trauma, deafness felt like the only mechanism available to deal with it.
[ad_2]
Source link
