“There are ‘mass shootings’ happening in our neighborhoods all of the time,” says Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario, the CEO of Compass Youth Collaborative, a nonprofit in Hartford aimed at helping at-risk youth. “Thankfully people aren’t always hurt, but you have to understand that even hearing those gunshots creates a ripple effect of fear and trauma within the community that is not easily remedied.”
COMPASS Youth Collaborative CEO Jacquelyn Santiago said Diego Lopez, the organization’s antiviolence team leader, brings a message of transformation to the Hartford youth he works with.
Standing at the rear entrance of the organization’s new office on Ledyard Street, COMPASS CEO Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario told the gathering that 89% of the roughly 200 youth in the program have lost either a family member or a close friend to gun violence.
UConn researchers offer tools and perspectives to reduce gun violence in the US. Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario, CEO of COMPASS Youth Collaborative, says the research has both offered insight into community life, and confirmed the effectiveness of outreach work.
As the weather warms up, community activists like Leonard Jahad worry gun violence will increase. Jahad leads the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program. He was at the scene hoping to talk to any kids in the neighborhood about the consequences of gun violence.
Leonard Jahad is with the Connecticut Violence Interruption Program. He said, “we have to do better. You can’t just get ready; we have to be ready. We have to be ready now.”
For his part, Rivera said in a statement that leading the nonprofit has “been a long-time aspiration of mine. But, to me, this is all about creating opportunities and better lives for the young people we serve.”
It had already been a violent week when Leonard Jahad got the news. He canceled an afternoon appointment and sprang into action. There had been yet another shooting near the Hamden-New Haven line, likely a homicide, and he needed to get to the hospital.
Every young person in Connecticut has incredible, innate potential. Yet 39,000 of our state’s high school-aged youth and young adults are at risk of not realizing that potential because they are disengaged or disconnected, which means they are less likely than their peers to graduate high school on time and connect productively with the workforce.
Leonard Jahad, the Street Outreach Worker program’s manager since 2015, has set up a new nonprofit, Connecticut Violence Intervention Program, Inc., that seeks to partner with Yale-New Haven Hospital and other municipalities on a stepped-up violence intervention program.
