The proposed curfew as a way to combat teen violence is DOA, and if 2007 is pegged to be the “Year of Youth” instead, with a focus on jobs, training, and quality after-school activities, the new year has gotten off to an early start for 16-year-old Horace Benton and his family. Benton, a Hillhouse High sophomore — who, according to his parents, spends too much aimless and potentially dangerous time hanging out after school — will soon be among the first group to enroll in “Gateway to National Prominence,” a new program conceived by New Haven Police Officer Shafiq Abdussabur, pictured with the Benton family.
Abdusabbur, the founder of CTRIBAT, a teen crime prevention program, announced The Gateway program as a partnership with Chip Croft, the owner of SEA-TV, at a dignitary-thronged reception at the Stetson Library on Dixwell Tuesday afternoon, where the program will be based. Teaching anger management and how to work through the difficulties in human relationships “” the source of teen violence according to Abdusabbur “” and doing so through computer graphic, design, and video workshops taught on state of the art equipment at Stetson (which will lead to good jobs) “” the program’s multi-faceted qualities have rapidly attracted support from Empower New Haven, the New Haven Public Library, the Police Department, and Yale to the tune of $41,000. Abdusabbur is confident the balance to reach the goal of $60,000 will soon be achieved.
To watch video clips of the Tuesday’s event, shot by Empower New Haven’s Tom Ficklin, click on the play arrow here…
… and here.
Abdussabur, who himself was nurtured at Stetson where he was a junior librarian in high school, met Chris Croft, a professor of communication at Southern Connecticut State University and the executive producer of SEA-TV, when Croft was making a documentary about violence in New Haven and the shooting of Jajuana Cole. “I met him in a Dunkin’ Donuts,” said Croft. (Officer Abdussabur was at humorous pains to point out he was there checking out a complaint, not eating a donut), “and we hit it off immediately. I also quickly learned that Shafiq’s program is without doubt among the city’s most effective. I was so moved, that we soon formed a partnership to use workshops, based here at the library, to use training in video production, scriptwriting and computer graphics to enhance the already impressive effectiveness of CTRIBAT programs for at-risk kids.”
Mayor DeStefano, who was on hand with Assistant Police Chiefs Stephanie Redding and Herman Badger and many others to mark the launch of the partnership, cast “Gateway to Prominence” as an example of the fruition of community policing. He said it also highlights the need to add officers to the force. “This program could not have happened without the leadership of Shafiq. He didn’t get to know people by answering the phone, but by being in the neighborhood, listening, not dictating, but responding to needs by creating this fine ‘Gateway to Prominence.’”
The mayor noted that there are some 9,000 teens in New Haven, and this program will “speak” to some 100 of them. There are other programs, such as those offered through his Open Schools initiative — which he pointed out, is operating in the nearby Wexler-Grant School across Dixwell Avenue.
Associate Vice President for Yale’s Office of New Haven and State Affairs Michael Morand, (on the right with State Rep. Bill Dyson in the photo) also complimented Abdussabur on the program but took issue with some rhetoric.
“We don’t see ‘youth at risk’ in the kids going into this program or those who live in the neighborhood and avail themselves, for example, of the other kinds of programs such as those at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center at the new Yale Police building on Ashmun Avenue,” Morand said. “What I see here are kids with potential.”
Then Morand pointed out that not far from the library, on Dickerman Street, Constance Baker Motley grew up, the woman who would go on to work with Thurgood Marshall on Brown vs. Board of Education and to become the first African-American federal judge. “Maybe,” he said, “that was possible because people connected to this library then, such as in Shafiq’s program today, just cared when it really mattered. We’re proud to be a part of this.”
A significant part of the financial support for “Gateway to National Prominence,” said James Welbourne, the head of the New Haven Public Library (to the right in the photo), and a mentor to Abdussabur, came from a recent surprisingly successful fundraising effort, called the 21st Century Campaign for the library. It raised nearly $1 million in private funds for NHPL, and was led in part by Michael Morand. One of the donors, the Seedling Foundation, of Branford, has directed their gift to that fund to be used to help launch Shafiq’s Gateway.
“And that’s as it should be,” added Welbourne. “Libraries are true havens, true community centers, anchors, and there should be more of them.”
Diane Brown Pettaway, the branch librarian at Stetson (to the left in the photo with SCSU students Franzel Ansah and Aisha Banks, who will be among the student-teachers in the program) spoke movingly about why the program will be at the this branch: “We’re not just a library. We’re part of a supportive village for these kids. We don’t just work on homework, but with a kid whose mother is going to prison, or one whose friend is shot. We are on the front line here, and Shafiq and all the officers we know them, we call them, and they know exactly how to handle the kids. Community policing is alive and well in this building.”
If there were a cautionary note struck amid the congratulations, it was by Dixwell Alderman Drew King (to the left in the photo), who is also a board member of CTRIBAT.
“Our babies are dying, and elected officials can’t do it all,” King said. “We heard what the kids told us at the curfew hearings: You need to put more love in the house, and you need to stop shutting down our programs. And this is all expressed in Shafiq’s program. But we need more.” He then addressed the mayor directly: “We need to open the armory down the street, Mr. Mayor, and put programs in there. We need to stop words and do more action like this program, so that my neighbor, an 18-year-old girl I saw today, won’t keep saying to me: ‘Alderman King, I go to school and then I go home and I stay home, indoors, because I’m afraid I’ll get shot if I go out.’ That’s got to end, and we take a step in that direction today.”
“Maybe the next Spike Lee or the next Martin Scorsese will be come out of our workshops,” said Chris Croft. “I know it’s going to happen and we’re looking to spread the model to other New Haven high schools, regionally, and eventually across the nation. That’s why it’s a gateway. Something important is going on here.”
The program begins within a week, said Abdussabur, with the focus on working with about 30 kids in groups of five kids, age thirteen to seventeen years old, on all aspects of media production. Horace Benton is eager to begin.
Kudos to Shafiq!!! I worked with him years ago at the Dixwell Creative children's Center and he was an excellent teacher and role model. I only wish his program could be duplicated and operated in my ward (30), as well as other neighborhoods. Good luck to him and his program.