Chicago's CeaseFire Program Targets Poor Youth in Dangerous Urban Neighborhoods

Nearly 700 children were hit by gunfire last year in Chicago, according to a report by NPR. NPR has been chronicling the efforts by Chicago schools, police and the community to reduce the violence.

One noteworthy effort is CeaseFire, a public health strategy designed to stop violence in poor, urban neighborhoods by helping at-risk youth find employment and by patrolling the streets. The group's interventions in risky neighborhoods and work with gang members have helped decrease shootings and killings.

In an interview with NPR, 17-year-old CeaseFire client Deyontaye Brooms talks about how the program dramatically changed his life. Brooms is a junior at Fenger Academy High School -- a school infamous for a cell phone video of the beating death of student Derrion Albert that went viral in 2009 -- in Chicago's Roseland district, a rough south side neighborhood rampant with gangs and gang fights.

Brooms says he's aware of the violence in his area -- before he hooked up with CeaseFire, he was one of the perpetrators.

"I was in a gang. It happens," he says. "You know, I used to be out here robbing people, shooting at people, breaking in their houses. I was doing everything I could to get the money, selling drugs and everything. Everything."

Brooms is on probation for getting into an altercation with a school security guard. He says that CeaseFire helped prevent him from getting kicked out of school. While he still has some problems at school, his grades have improved and he says he hopes CeaseFire can help him find employment.

LISTEN:

CeaseFire launched in 2000 in one of the most violent communities in Chicago. Since then, the organization's results have been replicated more than 18 times and have been shown to be effective by a U.S. Department of Justice-funded, independent three-year evaluation. To learn more about CeaseFire and to find out how to can help, please follow the links below.

Comments

[Nick Conrad]

03:15 PM on 03/29/2011

There is a really easy-to-use fundraising program at Meatheads Burgers. They donate a portion of sales back to your (insert club, team). www.meatheadsburgers.com/community

[OhManOhMan]

03:04 PM on 03/28/2011

This is sad!

Until gas spike to $5.00 then be ready for civil war II all over.

[beasteben]

10:56 AM on 03/28/2011

We need more programs like these that push the world toward a better place. Speaking as a man, work is theraputic. I remember suffering through some pretty nasty depression before finding work after college. Work has a magical way of helping one have a sense of purpose. Although now all I want is a vacation.

[Terri Lorz]

10:56 AM on 03/28/2011

Wow - great work. I am inspired. Terri Jo Lorz

[Bob Partida]

01:02 AM on 03/28/2011

Wow, what a difference a little compassion and understanding can make. We would think that the so called Moral majority could understand this, but alas, they are too hung up on a birth cert..

[Puck342]

01:13 PM on 03/27/2011

CeaseFire is a wonderful organization because it does what needs to be done; rehabilitation. Taking the conservative route and saying "we'd all be safer if every gang member were behind bars" has been tried for the past 30+ years, and ain't working. Helping people out of gangs, and helping them stay in school and hopefully find a job is the way to keep the violence down

[Nicole Dixson]

12:21 PM on 03/27/2011

Its' frackin sad that that is a real ad campaign. When did we lose our humanity?

[beerbagger]

07:55 AM on 03/27/2011

Just think what employment could do to heal this entire country... Never mind we got boogeymen to fight and business hates employees especially after they get their lousy bets covered and huge bonuses!!!

[MMRDO]

02:36 PM on 03/28/2011

Most of the people in gangs are not interested in working, and if you hire them, they take anything that isn't nailed to the walls.

[MoeB]

02:53 PM on 03/28/2011

...and you know this how?

[Dee Dee Russell]

03:47 AM on 03/27/2011

Sounds like a positive move in the right direction.

[Mrguitar]

11:56 PM on 03/26/2011

These kids and their parents need to stop perpetuating a culture where acting like an animal is acceptable.

[docwindprod]

11:58 AM on 03/27/2011

did you read the article, einstein?

[cookcar]

12:45 PM on 03/27/2011

You are looking only at the symptoms and not at the disease...POVERTY AND HOPELESSNESS!!!! We need to improve education from the start. One of the things that America stripped funding for and took out of schools and communities, especially those in ethnic neighborhoods, THE ARTS AND MUSIC. THe conspiracy is that we don't want these children empowered with self pride and dignity. We want them dying in the streets at an early age or supporting the prison industrial complex. It is all a set-up to get rid of a certain population in teh USA. What communitites and people who truly care need to do is like what Mr. Canada in Harlem USA has done. He has a "birth to adulthood" approach to educating and raising the children there (Yes, it does take a village...). The ars and music are a big part of the Harlem Village School's mission and the results are indisputable. Chicago needs to use Mr. Canada's work as a model and build something similar in south side Chicago. South Central LA has done it; for the first time in 30 years, kids in South Central can walk to and from school without fearing being shot. Mr Canada's program is about love, community, caring for one another, sharing, working together, building a better future for the children,....something America as a whole is against (well, only if it includes white people).

[joebiteme]

11:30 PM on 03/26/2011

how many were arrested for shooting let me guess 0

[docwindprod]

11:58 AM on 03/27/2011

lousy guess. your record is still perfect.

[Last Gasp]

09:36 PM on 03/26/2011

japanese kids are civilized. they dont act like the animals in chicago.

[SocratesFan]

10:23 AM on 03/27/2011

What does Japan have anything to do with this article?

[Ben Stewart]

11:49 AM on 03/27/2011

Not a whole lot, but there are vast swaths of urban and rural America where basic decency and education are emphasized by neither the parents nor the general culture. I lived in parts of Asia where poverty and unemployment were far more acute than inner-city Chicago, but the children were civilized and the parents had sky-high expectations for the teachers, school administrators, and their own children. Culture matters, and inner-city culture is hopeless.

[MoeB]

03:01 PM on 03/28/2011

Great...way to take a positive article about kids in bad situations doing the right thing, and make it about them being "animals" and not like the japanese kids...as if you know EVERY japanese kid.

[Dunkleberger Karl]

07:28 PM on 03/26/2011

I can see undercvover cops wading into the crowd
 beating the Yoots! Yelling "calm down, calm Down NOW!

[Pamela Ricci]

05:34 PM on 03/26/2011

Battle street crimes with jobs and a path out of poverty....what a novel idea!