Making nonviolence real for at-risk youth

INTERVIEW / Teny Oded Gross

Providence, RI, ranks third among cities in the United States for child poverty, but it has also entered the limelight for falling crime rates between 2002 and 2007. Such success brought attention to a local organization dedicated to teaching nonviolence to at-risk youths. The Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, a non profit organization that began in a church in the impoverished South Providence, has, over the last decade, established itself as a “million dollar agency” as described by Harvard Magazine.

The Institute takes its message based on the writings of Martin Luther King to schools, training kids from the 3rd grade up, it provides support to victims of violence, teaches nonviolence in jails and most especially, sends outreach workers into neighborhoods where youths clash over territories.

In the view of Institute executive director Teny Oded Gross, youths are addicted to a new drug: violence. “Kids today are growing in a world that is not safe for them, so they respond.” And it is time to rebuild a society that includes “the drug dealer, the police officer and the social worker”. This means calling for investment, reaching out to kids through peers, it means working through hybrid organizations that combine local community members and outsiders with a college education, and above all, not relegating the problem of violence to the professional domain of the police, “that would be insane,” said Gross.

Gross believes that the isolation felt by generations mired in unemployment and poverty has to be reversed with man-hours in art and education, opening up a new field of youth workers. “Just as there is a formula to calculate how many police officers, or hospital beds you need in a city, so we also have to work out how many youth workers are needed.”

What is the heart of violence prevention?

I think we look at the best research out there but some of it is intuitive and change is slow and organic. I think the role of love and empathy is extremely important, and leading by example, when you show them love young people will take criticism. Young people are sensitive to where criticism comes from.

People who work with at-risk kids must be charismatic?

When I think of the street programs that we train and work with, it is clear that you do not need to look for people who are charismatic. We have found that some of the best workers have quiet strengths, credibility, qualities that are not loud, but get a strong message across to youths. If you look at sports for example, teams are not all star teams, you have the stars, you need the team players.

But organizations in violence prevention have winning traits?

You really would need an organization with the best of both worlds, a so-called hybrid organization. You need the local savvy of the purely community grassroots organizations that are full of good intentions but suffer because they are stuck in their own circles and disconnected to services or institutions. You need the professionals and college educated people you find in social work organizations but they often don’t understand local life, treat the kids as problems to be solved or look at their work as mere jobs.  Both types of organizations have their problems. A hybrid organization, as was proposed at a meeting I went to, combines in its ranks former offenders and community people and the outsiders who are college educated, but who may lack street knowledge. Of course, it may be a recipe for clash inside the organization.. But the college people may realize how much they do not know, and the locals may gain access wider world. Ideally they push each other to become more rounded human beings.

Where does youth violence come from?

When we talk about poverty, we must understand that the third generation on welfare is disconnected from civilization. To quote sociologist Elijah Anderson –author of  ‘The Code of the Streets’: “The problem is really simple, in America the jobs were in the big cities and the factories, the jobs disappeared affecting minorities, welfare was cut with Clinton administration, the third leg of the economy is the underground economy.”
The drop out rate for in American schools in minority areas is about 50%. This is the pool for gangs.

We created this monster, and its about how societies make choices, kids today are growing in a world that is a lot less safe for them, so they respond. In a normal society adults provide safety for kids, and we have failed to do that.

It is a type of violence that crosses borders…

We did training in nonviolence in Belfast and we also worked alongside youth workers there. We have also been to Guatemala, and trained youth workers from six Central American countries. We went to these places to inspire and get inspired, you learn from wherever you go. We teach the philosophy of non violence, we feel that cities are around the world are changing. The United States leads the developed world in murder and suicide rate, and the availability of guns…

Can you imagine a world without gangs?

Yes I can. The worst enemy is the belief that things cannot change, people won’t spend the resources, and won’t change behaviors. To kill someone you first have to convince people that they are worth less than you.  The worst enemy is not apathy, but the philosophical belief that gives different values to human lives, to think of deaths, homicide rates, as predictable.

You believe the issue of youth violence is grounded on competing world views?

There is a philosophical battle in American culture. One set of assumptions sees successful people as the result of largely their own merit, and the other that looks at individual successes as connected to opportunity, social investment combined with individual effort. If you believe in the first you fail to invest in society. That is what happened in the last administrations. I will give you an example, if you look at the American budget, and subtract military spending; we have a nation that invests 22% of its GDP in government, while in other places, like Japan, the ratio is closer to 40%. Youth violence and gangs are a small side of these larger issues.

When we deal with violence prevention, we are also asking ourselves what is the social contract. What does it mean to be American. There is less social mobility here than in Denmark.

So to take nonviolence to communities also means to generate investments in a real business sense?

Its good to have human ambition, but things have just gotten out of proportion, success nowadays is about luck, no longer about what you can do… Business people understand that investments yield results. Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world gave 35 billion dollars to the Gates Foundation. He was asked in a recent interview: - You are the most successful capitalist in the world, why put your money in charity, and not just reinvest it? “Capitalism,” was his answer, “is the best system we have, it just does not work for the poor.”

We must ask ourselves what is the social contract we live with, what is the obligation to each other if we are the part of the same country, is government the enemy? Can inner cities be improved, can deprived kids have real access to society, to inspire them, teach them art, will they find love and help if they are poor?

You said that ‘Violence is the latest drug in American culture’. Can you work with at-risk kids without questioning the culture? Should kids reached by street workers, be asked to rethink the war games on computers, the music they listen to, the movies they see?

It is part of it, and we are looking at that. Just telling youths that this or that is bad, is useless. We have a former Latin King member who can make sense of it for them. He has a way to connect to the reality, he knows rappers personally and can tell kids what is myth from what is reality.

I think part of the solution is to get younger people trained in non violence. At the moment we have high school youth, eventually we will get to middle school, we train from the 3rd grade up. Young people listen to peers. We train non violence in juvenile jails, where young offenders are locked up at a cost of 100, 000, a year. That money could spend in education.

Do at-risk kids understand the justice system? How it dispenses discipline and justice?

For kids the legal system means the police, the police is seen as an occupying force. In our case the chief in Providence is an extremely likable person. But the fact is that families in the neighborhoods have two opposing expectations. They want the violence to stop, but also find it rough when their kids get stopped everyday by the police: they want the police to be both more humane and more aggressive.

That is why the police are not the only solution, you are basically going to war against your own people. To think that violence is the professional domain of the police is insane.

Could you comment on the relationship with the police? You are positive about community policing for example…

The goal of non violence is to build the beloved community, the criminal belongs in it and the police belongs to it. Its building bridges, and if we work with the police hopefully we can change them. The fact that I have former gang members as workers is daily proof that people can change. And this is important for cops, they actually refer kids to work with us with former gang members… it is important to bring both the drug dealer and the police back into community building.

You believe that a police force that is not supported by the community is easier to corrupt…

 It is much easier to corrupt a body that is isolated. Cops become insular they feel unimportant, thinking that they “are cleaning up society for rich people”. If they are connected and feel valued, they become less cynical and are less easily corruptible. In much the same way, drug dealers love the street workers who will help their younger brothers and sisters.

Just as police officers should not be isolated, what do you do to make your youth workers strong?

We teach a philosophy of non violence and we put a lot of effort into them.
Our board gives our street workers an interest free loans, (if they have a criminal history, they are not eligible for loans) we help they go to college, we invest them so they can invest in their families and their future. We do not, for example, fire them when they go wrong, we reevaluate the situation.

To substitute the role of gangs, you need a new work force?

We need to build a youth field, a body of youth workers. We must ask ourselves, is the youth work field adequate? Are there enough youth workers, can we keep the best of them? How long before they burn out? And convince society to invest. There are lots of potential youth workers who become cops, for example, for lack of a future as youth workers.

When you look at cites you have a formula for how many cops, hospital beds you need, to calculate how many doctors and nurses… No one in the United States has a formula for calculating how many youth works you need in a city.  How many people you need working with youth development, not just street workers, but people teaching art and taking them in trips in the countryside. We are trying to work that out in a project that we are undertaking in partnership with Brown University.

You see youth workers as playing a role in sustaining democracy itself?

I am  43 years old and I have still about 40 to 50 mentors myself, people I can call on for advice deal with my dilemmas, so mentoring other people is absolutely necessary for success. You run into mentors in the family, in your professions, in college. In areas of social exclusion, mentors are very often negative. Youth workers take that role, become positive mentors, it’s a bit like gardening. The fact is that democracies have a very short history, the longest is 200 years, out of human history it is a very short experiment. Often when it falls apart, it is because of this tremendous gap between rich and poor. I am still being mentored and am doing it for a younger generation. Youth workers are good mentors with younger kids.

The institute is for the study and practice of nonviolence. What do we need to learn about nonviolence?

The study part at the institute is very important. No one at the institute is non violent, we are working towards that goal. Every month a different department reviews one of the six principles of nonviolence. We are taught violence every day all the time in the media, etc. As workers, we have to reflect on our work, there is a daily wear and tear, how do you renew your belief and remind yourself again what you are doing… former gangs members we are all on a journey of transformation. You take a break from the crazy life out there, the reality that is crooked, like an athlete, we too must practice…

Read Further:

The Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence