It is
really hard to think that this will be one of my last times working at First
Community Resource Center. Since coming here at the end of January, these men
and women have really become some great friends who have taught me more than I
could ever verbalize and thank them for.
When I
taught my second to last class on Job Readiness this past Tuesday, it was
difficult to tell the students that I would not be coming back. The class has
been quite fun and entertaining to teach because each person is so unique and
motivated towards change in their own special way.
There is
this one woman who I have become really close with who is a little less than a
month younger than me and is the only woman to graduate from her high school in
2014. Because of her lack of access to seek higher education and lack of
transportation to use her matric certificate in a productive way, she idles at
home. She had not been in class for the past two weeks and so I was incredibly
concerned that something had happened to her, since the violence has been on
the uptick recently. Luckily, she was just staying with her cousin in the next
town over. She told me that she was applying to become a police officer and
really wanted to help her community, which of course made my heart sing.
Another
woman in my class, who is very enthusiastic and talkative, also wants to take
the hardships that she has in her life and make them into something that can
help her guide others towards employment and better lives. She also wants to
rebuild her community and has such bright ideas for mobilization that will
occupy those often drawn towards gangsterism.
It is often
easy to look at the news reports and see increased gang warfare, many shootings
and crazy violence that cover the telephone poles as Voice headlines, but it is
so important to remember the people being affected not just the gangsters. The
headlines do not include the names of my co-workers who can’t come into my
office because there are constant shootings that happen outside the doors of
their house. The headlines do not include the names of those going through
rehab at Camp Joy that are trying to make a change in their lives and in the
lives of their community peers to end this viscous cycle of gang violence. And
the headlines do not include the stories of my students who tell me about, in
their two truths and a lie ice breaker, the murders they have witnessed, and
how they don’t enjoy the fighting, and how they don’t enjoy the constant death
and destruction that has been commonplace as a resident of Hanover Park.
The people
I work with in the Ceasefire program have been working day in and day out to
try mediations, but for some reason the gangs do not feel like talking, even to
them. When I ask my colleagues why, they shake their heads and talk about the
new shipment of guns, old battles, territory disputes etc.
It would be
easy to get discouraged, but these amazing people push through the bullets to
promote change in their lives with the hopes that it will one day allow for
their broken community to heal.
A great
example was a class held by one of the women I work with who is a facilitator
at Camp Joy. She was teaching a class on attitude and passed out a sheet of
blank printer paper to all of our students. She had them fold the paper and remove
a piece from the right corner, removing approximately six pieces. She had them
save these pieces in their pockets or a friend’s pockets. “These are the broken
pieces of our lives,” she said. “We are not whole right now, but we are all
working together to get better.” She later told me that the next activity would
be to have the participants write down the troubles of their past that led them
to Camp Joy. They were to then laminate the pieces back together with the paper
to show that the past rebuilds the present and that recognition of these issues
is what allows us to move on.
This is
what, I think, one of the things that I will miss most, the inspiration and
perseverance of the people.
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| Elizabeth with colleagues at Community Resource Center |
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