An Unlikely Bond Between Chicago Teens and Veterans Is Saving Lives in the City

“How many people have you killed?”
Former Marine Julio Cortes looked into the face of the curious teen interrogating him.
“Next question,” Cortes replied.
Those are the kinds of questions we’re taught never to ask a veteran: Have you ever seen someone die? Have you been shot? Who did you kill?
But in Chicago’s Urban Warriors program, those kinds of questions are not only permitted but encouraged. That’s because the teens participating in the program have more likely than not witnessed or experienced similar violence themselves.
Cortes is one of 40 veterans currently participating in Urban Warriors, a program operated by the YMCA of Metro Chicago’s Youth Safety and Violence Prevention (YSVP) initiative. The program uses trauma-informed therapy to create and implement community projects throughout the city. Urban Warriors, one of five YSVP projects, is a five-year-old initiative with branches in a handful of Chicago’s most under-resourced neighborhoods, and it pairs veterans with youth who are at risk of committing or being subject to violence.
As nearly half of all homicides in Chicago are attributed to gangs, the need for effective intervention in the city is dire. Nationally, the percentage of those in gangs who are under 18 years old hovers around 35 percent. Psychologists have found that if young people find mentors outside the streets, they are motivated to stay away from gangs.
And that’s exactly what Urban Warriors has found effective in building up the self-esteem and self-worth of the kids in its program. The teens look up to and respect veterans, who can relate to what it feels like living in a war zone. They know what it’s like to fear for one’s life. And talking about the looming specter of violence in their lives helps youth process the resulting trauma.
“Kids identify themselves as soldiers, because they live in war zone communities,” Eddie Bocanegra, the co-founder of Urban Warriors, tells NPR. “They make the parallels between, veterans, you know, carry guns, we carry guns. They got ranks, we got ranks. They got their Army uniforms, we got our gang colors.”

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A female Urban Warriors cohort and their mentors.

During one recent conversation, Cortes and some teens in his group were discussing what it feels like right before getting shot in a drive-by shooting — the anxiety, sweat and anticipation that hits you right before you think someone’s going to pull the trigger.
“And then it turns out to be an ice-cream truck driving by,” Cortes tells NationSwell. “These kids are over-alert and watching their backs, even when they’re in the safest environments. They try to explain that feeling to other people who don’t get it. But I do.”
As a former gang member, Bocanegra knows what he’s talking about. At 14, he shot and killed a kid he mistook for a rival gang member, which landed him in prison for 14 years. While doing time, his brother — a decorated Army veteran — told him to seek therapy for the trauma he experienced on the streets and in prison.
Bocanegra listened to his brother and sought out counseling. Eventually he started working with anti-violence programs and, out of curiosity, began surveying gang members in 2013 to see who they looked up to.
“It all started based on this question we put out with high-risk youths: whom they felt safe and protected with,” Jadhira Sanchez, the director of Urban Warriors, tells NationSwell. “We gave them options such as EMT’s, cops, lawyers, doctors and veterans. And they chose veterans. That’s who they looked up to; that’s who they respected.”
For 16 weeks, three different cohorts of 20 teens — separated by sex — are partnered with five veterans. Each Saturday, the teens get to talk to each other about issues they’re currently dealing with. They get to ask questions of and seek guidance from the veterans. A social worker who can help to navigate services, such as applying for college or jobs, sits in on every conversation.
All the veterans and case workers are trained in trauma-informed care to help them navigate tense or uncomfortable conversations, but they say the single most effective approach has been simply giving the teens a chance to connect with people with whom they can relate.
“We found youth who [talk about] going into the gang world, and they compare that to basic training in the military branch. When you lose your buddy or brother in combat, some people compare that to losing someone on the streets. When you have those comparisons, they open to each other up because they feel on the same level,” Sanchez says.
“I had family who were involved with gangs, which means that even if you don’t claim it or wear the colors, you’re [guilty by association],” says Cortes. “Think about being 10 years old and your mom takes you to the good stores, and you see all the cool clothes but you can’t get it because of the colors on it. A 10-year-old has to process that. It’s little things like that.”
Urban Warriors participant William Javier can relate to the above. Javier, 17, grew up in Pilsen with an abusive father. He saw his friends join gangs and had to dodge stray bullets countless times.  
“You could literally die, going across [the street] to get some food, from a random bullet that wasn’t meant for you,” he says.
It resulted in him living inside his bedroom — trapped in his home by fear. But one day, tired of being inside and wanting to “be out there,” he thought about joining a gang.
“That life slowly starts grabbing at you and pulling you in. And my closest friend started to notice it,” he says.
That same friend pushed him into joining the Urban Warriors program two years ago. Javier was the teen who asked Cortes how many people he killed. (The veterans are not required to answer every question.)
“I knew he killed someone,” Javier says. “It was still a little [shocking] for some reason. But after that, I started to feel comfortable with him.”
Beneficial outcomes of the program have been mostly anecdotal, though Sanchez says they do survey participants before and after they complete the program. But the stories coming out of Chicago’s program are promising, and could be replicated in cities like Los Angeles or New Orleans that are also grappling with gang violence.
“I have youth that never wanted to go to college and now want to,” Sanchez says. “That’s a huge victory.”
Javier’s involvement in Urban Warriors has even saved his life, he says.
“I never saw myself graduating or living at all past freshman year. I saw myself in the grave,” he says. “After Urban Warriors, I saw myself in a better light — more open and confident and positive in life. Now, I’m close to graduating. I’m living happily. And doing the things I’m doing.”

Could Field Trips Push Kids Past Their Violent Realities?

Many first heard of Chicago’s Harper High School in 2013 on “This American Life. The radio show devoted two episodes to the school after a whopping 29 of its current and recent students were shot in a single year.
But Imran Khan first got to know the students there, on a much deeper level, when he began teaching at Harper in 2008. He saw firsthand the impact that poverty, gangs and violence had on his students. He also noticed that, despite living in the country’s third-largest city, the kids he taught rarely ventured beyond a several-block radius; it was simply too dangerous.
In essence, the students were isolated, leaving them without exposure to the people and experiences that could inspire them to go to college and then on to rewarding careers.
So Khan began taking some of the students on nearby trips — to restaurants, universities, grocery stores and museums. The journeys, he says, opened their eyes to possible career paths, like becoming a cook, a chef, even a restaurateur. Other students became more interested in the arts, or intrigued by fresh produce they had never before seen, let alone tasted.
“They had a distorted sense of self-efficacy and were not quite grasping [that it was up to them] to change their situation,” says Khan, who took what he learned leading these journeys and created a three-year extracurricular program, called Embarc, in 2010.

Imran Khan launched Embarc to empower students in one of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods to step out of their comfort zones and embrace new opportunities.

In the seven years since, Embarc has focused on providing real-world “experiences,” partnering with more than 250 local organizations and companies willing to open their doors to the low-income students who participate. Nearly 40 teachers at 20 schools have signed on to the program, which has been integrated into Chicago Public Schools’ course catalog, and Embarc is pushing to expand its impact both in Chicago and other cities across the U.S.
“It is imminently scalable,” says Eboo Patel, a mentor and founding president of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based nonprofit. “It’s a great three-pointer in a broader set of plays that America needs to have in order to level the playing field.”
Khan is quick to point out, however, that Embarc “isn’t a pity party” focused on society’s haves and have-nots. The journeys and experiences instead are built on fostering trust, goodwill and confidence.
For one team activity, students meet on neutral territory in downtown Chicago and separate into pairs. With adult supervision, they have about 90 minutes to find and check off a list of city landmarks. The rules? The pair of students must take two forms of transportation, and one of the them has to remain blindfolded.
“The fear level is so high, but everyone has to do it,” says Khan, 37. “After that, you learn massive amounts of trust and how to ask other people for help. That kind of journey can happen in any city.”
During restaurant visits, students can shadow employees on the job, chip in to help and taste a few dishes while learning about their ingredients. “There’s a sense of belonging and accomplishment,” says Khan.
Embarc students on a field trip to Brooklyn Boulders.

Through these kinds of activities and tours, Khan is proving that experiential development has as much a role to play as cognitive development when it comes to education. Ninety-seven percent of Embarc’s participants have graduated high school, Khan says, and 93 percent have enrolled in college, including both two- and four-year programs.
“Oftentimes you hear complaints that young people are throwing away this education that’s been gifted or given to them,” says Simon Stumpf, director of venture and fellowship for Ashoka, a nonprofit that supports social entrepreneurs. But, he adds, Khan’s “sense is that they don’t know what door that key opens — we need to help them unlock intrinsic motivation so they can use that key.” Last year, Khan was selected as an Ashoka Fellow to help scale Embarc’s work.
Ultimately, foundations and grants may drive Embarc’s expansion outside Chicago. But Khan envisions a model that could move beyond donations — where cities, schools or partner organizations access an Embarc “blueprint,” and then scale the program in their own districts. Patel admits that finding long-term funding to support Embarc’s core mission will be tricky.
“You have to get lucky, and you have to be strategic,” he says.

In This Tough Chicago Neighborhood, Kids Are Choosing to Box, Not Fight

The Chicago Youth Boxing Club (CYBC) is tucked in a church basement in the Windy City’s Little Village neighborhood, providing one of the area’s few after school activities. Since it was founded in 2006, the gym has become much more than a place for kids to hang out. “It isn’t enough to get kids off the street,” says Ana Patricia Juarez, programming manager for CYBC, “you have to build them into leaders and people who will eventually give back to their communities.” The boxing club now provides counseling, nutritional education, and college readiness programs.

This Woman Fought The Tough Chicago Streets and Won

Sally Hazelgrove grew up in the safe, affluent Chicago suburb of Naperville, but that didn’t stop her from moving her family to one of the city’s worst neighborhoods.
After hearing story after story about gun violence in the crime-riddled community of Englewood on Chicago’s South Side, Hazelgrove decided she wanted to help make a difference in the lives of the children there. She first began volunteering and participating in Department of Children and Family Services programs but was determined to figure out what could get young men off the streets.
“I surveyed the boys on the corners,” said Hazelgrove. “I had my little pad and paper, and asked them what would get them off the corner. Something they wanted to do that they don’t have access to that would get them off the block for a few hours so they’re safe.”
The answer came in the form of boxing, and Hazelgrove hatched a plan to create a boxing club. Though she had no experience, Hazelgrove began boxing training before inviting students from a local elementary school to join her in 2009. Such was the beginnings for the Crushers Club, a boxing club to help rehabilitate Englewood and West Englewood’s youth and give them a safe and strong alternative to gangs.
In 2012, Hazelgrove won a $100,000 grant as well as a year of management support from A Better Chicago, which enabled her to expand the club and hire and train some of the boys as mentors for other students. Now, based in the Zion M.B. Church, the Crushers Club employs 21 boys between the ages of 14 and 24. The boys are not only providing support to other students, but also gaining valuable work experience.
“A lot of the boys that come here haven’t had a job before or even know someone who has modeled that for them,” said Hazelgrove. “We want their mistakes to come out here. Being late, conduct, clothing, engagement; we weed out the bad habits. After a year to three years here, they’ll go out and get another job, and not make the same mistakes there.”
But Hazelgrove hasn’t limited her support to boxing. Joseph “Jo-Jo” Cook was a young boy when Hazelgrove met him, warning her to go inside just before a shooting was about to happen. Recognizing his creative spirit, she pledged to open a studio for him if he would give up a life on the street. Keeping her promise, Hazelgrove built The Voice of Englewood Studio.
“A lot of people have lost hope, and we’re trying to bring people in and give them another option for what they can do in their life,” said Cook. “We got some guys who don’t even care about losing their life. But it feels safe here.”
Creating that sense of safety amid the fraught community is what drives Hazelgrove to keep fighting for the youth through the Crushers Club.

“I have to find a light that burns brighter than the street,” she said. “I have to find something just as exciting.”

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What Can Former Gang Members Teach Psychology Students?

On the first day of class, gunshots alarmingly rang out in the hallway of the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute (PCITI) in Los Angeles, where former gang members sit alongside grad students working toward their doctorates in psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Executive director Aquil Basheer soon arrived to tell the students that he had fired harmless blanks as an experiential learning technique to get the students to pay attention to their own reactions and those of others in the face of violence.
Why the seemingly extreme teaching method? It’s a way to make violence prevention lessons more authentic and more helpful in case the soon-to-be-doctors some day find themselves in truly dangerous situations.
Basheer knows what he’s talking about. After all, he was once a gang member himself. After leaving the criminal lifestyle behind, he began PCITI in 2002 to give firefighters, psychologists, and other professionals standard techniques to apply toward violence intervention. In the past, the people who live in violent neighborhoods usually wouldn’t talk to the psychologists who tried to launch violence prevention programs — but they’ll talk to Basheer.
Former gang members come to his classes to talk about what situations spark violence and the best ways to diffuse tensions. They teach the doctorate students how to control rumors, restrain people safely, hold candlelight vigils for victims of violence without prompting more shootings, help bystanders, and perform CPR.
The former gang member instructors even teach the students what body language is acceptable in poor communities. Nikko Deloney, one of the streetwise teachers, told Melissa Pandika of Ozy Magazine, “You need to know if you have a holier-than-thou look in a place where people are hopeless.”
Once the program participants have a basic understanding about how to intervene in or prevent violent situations, the teachers take them out on the streets of Los Angeles for tours of “hotspots.”
Deloney says one of the most important lessons is to observe and listen more than they preach. “We call it grandstanding for no one. ‘I have all the answers in my book.’ If you show up without your book and a little communication and integrity … you can actually help somebody.”
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Think It’s Impossible for Rival Gangs to Resolve Their Differences? This Man Will Prove You Wrong

Brooklyn might not look the same as it did back in the 1970s, when Robert DeSana started teaching at John Dewey High School in Bensonhurst. But underneath the coffee shops, loft spaces and trendy restaurants lies some of the same problems that plagued the area decades ago. Gangs are still the way of life for far too many youths born and raised in New York communities. Racial tensions still run high. And drug dealers still stake their claim to street corners. To DeSana, this is no way to live, so for almost 40 years, he’s been showing youths and adults alike that there is another way through the Council for Unity.
The CFU is a nonprofit that empowers youth to take ownership of the problems of bias and violence that exist in their schools and communities. The program, which includes a specific curriculum developed by DeSana and approved by the NYC Board of education in the 1980s, is centered on “Four Pillars”: family, unity, self-esteem and empowerment. The idea is to build a culture of acceptance, in which students from varying backgrounds can grow to understand and support each other to eradicate violence. So far, the program been a success. CFU reaches more than 100,000 kids a year, ranging from 8 to 20 years old, throughout 30 schools in the New York City area and beyond. More than 93 percent of attendees eventually graduate from the program. “If 93 percent of them are graduating, that tells you one thing: The street is not winning, we are,” DeSana told TruthAtlas.
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When DeSana started the Council in 1975, he designed it as a way to unite opposing groups to prevent violence in school. That sense of peace ended up expanding into the surrounding community, and he was eventually asked to replicate the group at schools that faced similar challenges. From there, CFU just continued to grow. “It started as a club. Then, it became a program, then a course, then a culture,” DeSana said. “Now, it has become a movement.” In addition to New York schools, the Council has taken up residency in various prisons in the area, including Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security institution in Ossining, New York, and the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverhead. Here, prisoners from rival gangs can find a common ground and a safe haven. “The founders of CFU in the Suffolk County jail were members and leaders of the Crips, the Bloods, MS-13, the Latin Kings, and the Aryan Brotherhood,” DeSana said. “That is an impossibility. That had never occurred before.” DeSana hopes he can prevent at-risk youths from becoming criminals in by offering them a community where they feel safe and secure, without the violence.
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