It was difficult to conceptualize the neighborhood violence that Bennie, Iysha, and Taniqua where describing to me while we sat together in the art studio of the beautiful Gary Comer Youth Center. Being surrounded by all the students' art made it difficult to remember the violence and suffering that's continuing outside its doors, but I was quickly reminded when I checked my email. My roommate had sent me this article with the warning "Be careful."
I brought up the article to Bennie and Iysha and I was overwhelmed by their amount of knowledge. How had Jason, Sarah, and I been walking down the same 79th street that people protested on and not know anything about the situation going on in the community we're here to serve? Are we not being aware, or is there a lack of connection between the youth and speaking out about this issue?
"They do not care." Iysha kept repeating when I asked how kids feel about the abundance of deaths and gang violence in the neighborhood. Obviously gang violence isn't conducive to a healthy community. Besides the visible effects, a violent neighborhood increases the stress of community members, which leads to an array of health problems. But how do we go about developing a service project that could address this problem? Is it too big an issue to tackle for the amount of time we have? Probably. But regardless, it raises the issue of apathy. In all service projects which require community involvement how do we combat apathy?
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