RYLEE REED, 15, and SH’KERAH DEDARBELADEN, 18, were among the roughly 150 students at the Youth Enrichment Services Teen Summit, held July 8, at Mt. Ararat Baptist Church in Larimer. (Photo by Rob Taylor Jr.)
From 1994 to 2017, only one young person involved in the uplifting programs spearheaded by Youth Enrichment Services (Y.E.S.) was killed due to gun violence in the Pittsburgh area.
But in the past four years, there have been three young people directly connected to Y.E.S. that have been killed, and three others killed who were relatives or friends of those connected to Y.E.S.
Dennis Floyd, Ph.D., executive director of Y.E.S., knew there was a crisis looming. He knew even more had to be done to help today’s youth.
That is how the “Teen Public Safety and Violence Prevention Summit” was born.
The summit, a day-long event held at Mt. Ararat Baptist Church, in Larimer, July 8, took on added significance since the April 17 Easter Sunday morning shooting incident at an AirBnB rental on the North Side, claiming the lives of Jaiden Brown and Mathew Steffy-Ross, two 17-year-olds. Nearly 10 other young people were wounded in the shooting that made national headlines. Steffy-Ross was a student in Y.E.S. He was also a friend of fellow Y.E.S. student Iamere Lawrence, 15. Lawrence and 19-year-old Kwahyum Williams, also a participant in Y.E.S., helped bring the summit to fruition.
DENNIS FLOYD, PH.D., executive director of Youth Enrichment Services in East Liberty. (Photos by Rob Taylor Jr.)
About 150 youth, the majority of whom were African American, attended the summit. Students received a welcome from Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, and then broke out into group sessions. In those sessions, students, among other groups, heard from adult women in the group, “Moms Voice” — women who lost sons, daughters or nephews to gun violence. They heard from Bonnie McClain, aunt of Steffy-Ross, Michelle Kenney, mother of Antwon Rose II (who was tragically killed in 2018 by a now-former East Pittsburgh police officer), and Barbie Sampson, mother of Jasmine Guest, who was shot and killed while riding in a vehicle on the Parkway East last year.
Other groups included “Youth Voice,” “Community Voice,” “Women and Girls Voice,” “Healthcare Voice,” “Project Overcoming” and “Toxic Masculinity.”
MIJANA BRATTENWILDER, 18, NOWELL HOWIE, 17, TYSHANTI MONTGOMERY
The afternoon session of the summit featured a panel formed by both youth and adults on a variety of topics, including the impact of gun violence on today’s youth and if the violence can be stopped. The afternoon keynote speaker following the panel was Special Agent David Daniels, a criminal investigator with the NASA Office of the Inspector General’s Cyber Crime Division.
Students were provided breakfast and lunch during the summit.
With the students hearing from so many different speakers, they were able to get an all-encompassing view of how violence has affected others. But also as important was how people have overcome the loss of a loved one, which included the ability to speak publicly to others, such as in the summit-style setting.
Eighteen-year-old Sh’Kerah Dedardelaben, who will attend Allderdice High School this fall as a senior, told the New Pittsburgh Courier the summit showed her that “there’s so much more to life than just violence and getting even with someone because of revenge.”
She added that “earlier in the year, revenge was my only way to feel OK. If someone was to do something crazy to me, I felt like the best way I can do is get back at them. It was really bad at that point in time, but now my mind is more open to a positive side of life. There’s so much more to my life than, ‘OK she did this to me so now I have to get her’ or ‘he did this so I have to go get him.’…Revenge is not going to lead me anywhere.”
Dedardelaben wants to be an actress, and she said she doesn’t want to engage in any activities that will deter her from that goal.
Nowell Howie, 17, said the summit helped him learn how to put himself in another person’s shoes. “I was in the group, ‘Moms Voice;’ they were talking about how they lost a loved one and it helped me understand that maybe what I’m going through, there’s always someone else going through the same or worse,” he told the Courier.
Seeing things from another person’s perspective is something Howie will take with him. Howie said he recently had a falling out with a friend, “and maybe if I had known what I know now (from the summit), maybe (the friendship) could have ended on good terms.”
Gun violence was the primary topic of discussion during the afternoon panel session. Both Lawrence and Williams were part of that discussion. “Getting guns nowadays is like buying a bike,” Williams told the Courier.
Lawrence added that there are websites that teens know about that sell the parts needed to build a ghost gun. “All you need are bullets,” Lawrence told the Courier.
Lawrence and Williams said it will be tough to eradicate a lot of the violence happening today because, “people glorify bad things,” but they are committed to having positive energy. “You (give off) negative energy, negative things will come to you,” Williams said. “If you’re positive, people will show love to you. It’s the way you carry yourself as a person” which matters most.
Williams said that when more youth act as their true selves, they’ll be less prone to follow the bad apples who think violence is the best answer. “You can be the little weirdo kid, you can be anybody you want to be,” Williams said. “Just be yourself, love yourself, look in the mirror and love the person that you’re becoming.”
McClain, the aunt of Steffy-Ross, said that it was wonderful to see the many students who spoke their mind at the summit. She said that oftentimes, there are resources in the community to help youth who may be struggling with certain aspects of life, but it’s up to the youth who have utilized those resources to inform their fellow students that those resources are available. Youth Enrichment Services, which has been providing academic, mentoring and economic development programs for youth in Pittsburgh since 1994, is one of those community resources.
Floyd, the Y.E.S. executive director, told the Courier exclusively that Y.E.S. recently received a $400,000 grant from the R.K. Mellon Foundation. “Do what you need to do to save these kids,” Floyd said the foundation told him.
Floyd said he hoped the youth learned three main takeaways from the summit: “People listen to them, they (the students) matter, they have a voice, people hear the voice; they can make a difference, they’re not alone (in their trauma); and that Y.E.S. is going to make the necessary changes so they can continue to have that voice and see action.”
Youth Enrichment Services, in East Liberty, has been a source of alternative services for youth rather than juvenile detention for more than 20 years. Floyd told the Courier he tells the youth that they’re not to blame for the culture of violence. “The guns come into the neighborhood by some other means,” Floyd said. “But we want to make the kids accountable for their actions.”
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