About the Blog
Chain of Change is committed to advancing justice in and through media. We see gaps and contradictions between how mainstream media often report on violence involving and affecting youth and what you are experiencing in your everyday life. This blog seeks to fill in the gaps by including your story.
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Media Justice Blog
Getting To Chicago’s Boys Before Gangs Do
March 22, 2011 - no commentsIn some of Chicago's troubled neighborhoods, it's not unusual for boys to join gangs at a young age. For many, it's a road fraught with violence.
But a group called Becoming a Man (BAM) is working on getting to those youngsters before they're drawn into gang life or drop out of school.
Tags:
chicago public schools, gang violence, gangs
Stop the Violence: Program tackles gangs, guns
June 14, 2010 - 3 CommentsA Chicago program is working to get gangs and guns off the streets.
Tags:
10-15, 15-19, ABC local, church involvement, community involvement, CPS, drugs, gang violence, gun violence, hispaniclatino, june 2010, little village, male, parent involvement, pilsen, police involvement, youth voices
Father Plefger and Annette Nance-Holt interview
June 14, 2010 - 1 CommentFather Plefger and Annette Nance-Holt speak about their violence prevention efforts.
Tags:
African American, church involvement, community involvement, female, gang violence, gun violence, male, murder, parent involvement, south side, street violence
Stop the Violence: Mayor Daley
June 14, 2010 - no commentsChicago Mayor Richard M. Daley discusses how parents can help stop the violence - video interview-
Tags:
Englewood, family violence, gang violence, government involvement, gun violence, police involvement, school violence, street violence
CPS anti-violence program takes off, slowly
June 03, 2010 - no commentsAs CJ lay in a hospital last winter nursing a gunshot wound to his arm, the prospect of graduating from high school seemed a distant dream for the skinny Roseland teen. Mostly left to his own devices, he had drifted to the streets at an early age and often skipped school, since attending class required crossing a web of gang lines that conflicted with his own affiliations.
Five months later, CJ rarely misses a day, participates in class and is on track to graduate. He credits his turnaround to an ambitious program launched by Chicago Public Schools this school year to stem youth violence.
Tags:
chicago tribune, church involvement, CPS, Farragut Career Academy, gang violence, government involvement, gun violence, Hyde Park high, invisible boundaries, june 2010, male, manley high school, murder, noble network charter school, non CPS, Roseland, school violence, south side, street violence, tilden high school, youth voices
Beach violence alarms alderman
June 02, 2010 - no commentsA North Side alderman is calling for police surveillance cameras along a stretch of beachfrom Oak Street to North Avenue to keep a lid on violence this summer.
"We just don't want any gang problems at the beach," said Ald. Vi Daley (43rd), whose lakefront ward includes North Avenue beach. "Beaches are there for people to enjoy, to play volleyball, swim and walk along the beach. We want to make sure it's a safe place for people to go.''
Tags:
15-19, Chicago Sun Times, female, gang violence, government involvement, gun violence, male, North Side, police involvement, street violence
Students’ party brings sparkle — and hopes for peace — to Rogers Park
May 26, 2010 - no commentsLast school year, several students on their way to school watched a teacher get carjacked. Fights are a constant, and kids often are chased. Sirens wail and shots ring out when they are home at night. The kids avoid Pottawattomie Park, just outside their school's front door, because of the gangs hanging out there. Recently, a woman was lurking around the school handing out fliers to the teen girls, trying to entice them into sex work, with a phone number to call.
But rather than fear their community, the teens are trying to change it. For the second year in a row, they are hosting a party with a straightforward and time-tested goal: peace. A student-organized party informally called the "peace event,'' will be held on the streets around the school and part of Pottawattomie Park on Saturday, and the students are hoping the whole neighborhood will come.
Tags:
10-15, 15-19, community involvement, CPS, female, female, gang violence, gun violence, Jordan elementary, North Side, rogers park, school violence, street violence, violence prevention, youth voices
Upending Twisted Norms
May 12, 2010 - no commentsOne of the most frightening aspects of the murderous violence plaguing so many urban neighborhoods across the country is the widespread notion among young people that killing somebody who ticks you off is normal. It’s something that is only to be expected, like eating when you’re hungry.
Tags:
15-19, academia involvement, community involvement, CPS, gang violence, gun violence, hispaniclatino, interpersonal violence, male, murder, New York Times, non CPS, police involvement, street violence
Success ‘up to you,’ teens told
May 08, 2010 - no commentsWhen Dorian Boyland was growing up in South Shore, he joined a gang, the former Pittsburgh Pirates baseball player turned multimillionaire auto dealer confessed.
Seeing he was headed for trouble, his single mother sent him away to live with his grandmother.
Tags:
15-19, African American, church involvement, corporate involvement, CPS, drugs, gang violence, morgan park high school, murder, robeson high school, street violence, youth voices
Bloody Urban Landscapes
May 07, 2010 - 1 CommentDriving through some of this city’s neighborhoods is like driving through an alternate, horrifying universe, a place where no one thinks it’s safe to be a child.
You follow a map in which the coordinates are laid out in blood. Over there, in front of that convenience store, is where Fred Couch, 16, was shot to death last December. The Couch boy went to the same school, Christian Fenger Academy, as Derrion Albert, an honor student who was beaten with wooden planks and kicked to death three months earlier in a broad daylight attack that was recorded on a cellphone by an onlooker.
Tags:
15-19, African American, church involvement, community involvement, CPS, drugs, family violence, fatherlessness, fenger high school, gang violence, gun violence, murder, New York Times, north west side, Prologue Early College High, south side
Youth Blog
Untitled
July 12, 2010 - no commentsIt was two thirty in the hot afternoon, lunch was recently over and it was half hour left until school end, the subsitute teacher was sitting on his desk reading the newspaper, kids were walking around the classroom gossiping as usual. Looking at the school buses rolling into our middle school parking lot, I felt a tap on my shoulder. i turn around to find it was my friend Jasmine* (name changed) with a bloody forehead, smiling at me with excitement.
Tags:
gang violence