YMCA Street Soldiers: Keeping Kids Alive and Free

Jamala Henderson
06/02/2009

Gang and youth violence is a growing concern in the city of Seattle. And there are different approaches to fighting it. Some look at violence as a problem to be solved. But there's one model that treats violence as a threat to public health. A few Seattle Schools are teaching that to their kids, through a program offered by the YMCA.

The sound of the bell signals freedom for the middle school students at Seattle's Aki Kurose Middle school. There's only a few minutes between classes. But that's just enough time for Eleuthra Lisch to greet kids in the hallway and recruit kids into her program.

Lisch: "Are you committed to eliminating violence? Let's not be late to class people! Fabulous decisions let's see it in action, fabulousness!"

Lisch is the director of a program called Alive and Free. It's a health class at Aki Kurose. And the kids who take the class are given a nick name: Street Soldiers.

Lisch: "A Street Soldier is someone who is committed to eliminating violence in their own life, and their community. And I was, I have been dedicate to trying to figure that out in my life, and I have, achieved a further enough place in this continuum to offer it to the community now."

Alive and Free has been at Aki Kurose five years. The curriculum labels violence as a disease. Teachers help kids deconstruct the symptoms by examining their community, and their own life experiences.

One exercise students complete, is called their road to freedom. It's a timeline where they map out every instance of violence they've experienced. What they've been exposed to. What they've witnessed. Perpetrated, and survived.

Siu: "This is my Alive and Free little timeline and I did it in class. It's pretty good, I think its okay."

Mario Siu is 12 years old, and stands about 4 feet. He's wearing an oversized white t–shirt and loose skater jeans. This is Mario's road to freedom timeline until he reached the age of eight.

Siu: "For one through four I put, it seemed like a perfect life. But weed was smoked behind my back. Weed was dealt behind my back. Guns hidden from little eyes until I turned seven. And through four to eight, guns weed introduced by my favorite cousin. Hitting and yelling all happened with a drunk high male. A scared girl. He pulled a gun and I hit the deck. Crying because I saw the inside of the barrel. Black like the soul of the person who wielded it."

It may seem quite bleak to have a child face those painful experiences. But the ultimate goal is for the kids to identify a focus point. A reason they have to stay Alive and Free. For Mario, that's skateboarding.

Siu: "The rush like when you're going down a hill just – its so fun. But sometimes you can mess up cause you know, something can just break and then just ..."

Henderson: "Wipeout."

Street soldiers not only deconstruct their own experience of violence, to understand how to fight it. They also look at how violence affects the community that surrounds them.

Eleuthra Lisch says four specific things can attack and weaken a community's immune system: unemployment, lack of social programs, weapons on the streets, and drugs. Lisch teaches kids to recognize these dangers.

Lisch: "How they often mask themselves as health. That it can look so glamorous to be doing dangerous and toxic things. And creating a filter. So that they can command, rather than sensor, command and understand what's coming in and have some ownership and power what they allow into their mindset."

Lisch says the curriculum they teach also help kids deconstruct the relationships in their lives. Another concept the street soldiers use is something called fearship vs. friendship. It's the idea that a real friend will never lead you to danger. That's something 13 year old Alexis Austin is very familiar with.

Austin: "In my life I have friends and fearships. A fearship is basically a friend who you can hang out with, but you can't put them in the category of being your real friend because its probable that they're gonna try to get you to do things bad, or something that's not right."

Alive and Free also addresses what it calls the germs of violence: bad information, bad instruction, bad advice, and bad examples. One way those germs are transmitted is through a language of death. Something as simple as snitching vs. telling.

Austin: "Snitching is like when you tell, and you just do it to tell you just do it to get somebody else into trouble. And telling is when you're trying to get yourself out of danger, or other people."

That was something that was hard for Alexis' mom, Liletha Williams, to hear.

Williams: "And so my daughter, who tells me everything. Not everything now, but tells me a lot for a parent and a 13–year–old and came home and said you know, I told on somebody today. And I was very upset about that I said you snitched? We don't snitch."

But what Alexis brought home from Alive and Free, ended up teaching Liletha a new lesson as well.

Williams: "And she said mom, that's my friend I don't want her to get in trouble. I didn't tell to get her in trouble, I told so somebody could help her, and talk to her, so that she won't get in trouble. She'll either go to jail or get hurt doing that."

Liletha Williams says that conversation with her daughter really challenged some of her deeply held beliefs.

Williams: "What's in the house stays in the house. What I do. What I do to you. Stays in the house. That's the kind of ideology I grew up with. It's the big secret. That's how a lot of abuse keeps going and people being handed down, criminal activity as a way of life. Its all because of that big secret. Not being able to tell."

The more you know, the more you owe. That's another Alive and Free concept that Street Soldiers learn.

At the end of the school year, the students will take everything they've learned and share it with the rest of the school in an assembly.

Eleuthra Lisch has two concerns. Finding enough funding to keep Alive and Free alive, so they can spread the message. And getting more of the community involved in fighting what she calls the disease of violence.

Lisch: "So we want to engage our entire community, we want to act like a great big village, and we're not going to be doing it at all, if we don't get the funds to make it happen. "

Lisch and Class: "Street Soldiers on your feet! What's your Goal? Stay Alive and Free!"

Jamala Henderson, KUOW News.

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