Students from eight Milwaukee public high schools are being honored for succeeding against the odds they’ve faced in their lives.
One of the biggest is not having an adult they can count on. That was until these students participated in Violence Free-Zone. The program gives students the opportunity to work with youth advisors available to them 24- hours a day – during school hours and well beyond.
Advocates say that willingness to be there for kids whenever they need someone, inspires students and changes their behavior.
WUWM’s Susan Bence attended a program yesterday where some of the students were being honored.
All eight students here have at least two things in common. They never thought they’d eat a fancy lunch and be honored by a bunch of business people.
But that’s just what happened at the War Memorial in downtown Milwaukee.
Robert Woodson is one of people wearing a business suit. He leads a national organization that works with low income neighborhoods to address problems like violence spilling over into schools.
“Many of our children when faced with a crisis have no one to turn to. Someone once said when you are forced to walk through life without content or meaning in your life, life loses meaning. One young man I once knew long ago said, it’s better to be wanted for murder than not to be wanted at all,” Woodson says.
Woodson says the Violence-Free Zone program works because of the connection its youth advisors make with students.
“They have undergone some of the same challenges that the kids have undergone and they have overcome those challenges. So they are not advocates for the young people, they are witnesses to them that just because you’re living in poverty you don’t have to be of it. Just because you’re living in a gang-ridden neighborhood, you don’t have to be of it,” Woodson says.
Youth advisors staff schools during the day. Off hours, the kids can reach advisors by cell phone, anytime.
Robert Roberson advises at Bay View High School. He introduces the first honoree. When Roberson first met student Rachnee Williams she was constantly involved in fights.
“With her fighting so much she became good at it. And what happened with that is with being good at fighting, she was often recruited by other students to fight battles, when they got involved in something. She spent a lot of time on suspension for issues that weren’t even hers,” Roberson says.
A slim quiet Rachnee Williams steps forward to receive her heavy gold medal of honor. She addresses the audience.
“I used to have bad grades, used to fight every day, never wanted to go to school. Now I maintain a 3.6 grade point average,” Williams says.
Williams quietly adds, please keep believing in me.
“Well I did have a speech written, but I decided to speak from the heart.”
This is Domeesha Lauderdale. The Bradley Tech student says she had fallen into a pattern of fighting too.
“And it really did get the best of me, I let me grades fall and I was really ready to give up. And when I met the people that work at my school they changed all of that and they changed my life. I built a better relationship with my friends and my family. I was hurting my mother as well my self with decisions that I made I now me and her have a better relationship,” Lauderdale says.
Shalina Ali says not all kids who find their way to the program are acting out.
“Some slip quietly through the cracks,” Ali says.
Ali works at Madison High School.
“I know that we like to think we’re available for all students regardless whether they’re slipping through the cracks or making a scene. The young man that I am honoring today was who was quiet about his struggles. He had illness that was keeping him out of school and he was averaging a 0.7 last year. I’m going to let Nick tell his own story,” Ali says.
Nicholas Rodriquez says he missed a lot of school because he has asthma. Even when he made it to classes, he wasn’t motivated to do his homework. Rodriquez says that changed when he met his Violence-Free Zone advisor, Mr. Neusom.
“As soon as I signed the release forms, Mr. Neusom was on my case. He was. When I was absent, he compiled my daily work so that I could do it at home, which I didn’t like at first, but I got it done,” Rodriquez says.
He got it done so well, Rodriquez is maintaining a 4 point average.
Dominique Jordan says he wasn’t performing well in school either. He thought he was destined to live on the streets. The South Division High School is the oldest of eight children.
“You know I wasn’t expecting to be standing here. I expected for me to still be running the streets, you know doing something I had no business doing but I finally had to take charge of my life,” Jordan says.
Jordan wants to prove he has greatness in him, to contribute to the community.
“And not looking at me as okay, this person is just a thug, he don’t want to do nothing. But now I define thug as true hero under god,” Jordan says.
Something else happens in that room the students probably never expected; they get a standing ovation.
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