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It's it's not normal to live in a violent situation. Um the the the norm is to live on live on peaceful streets
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and and be a be be a good neighbor. Um and um that's that's something a lot of them never seen before. Um that's that's
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just what they come up in. So,
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with the ATV is just emphasizing on the uh the gang violence and gun violence and um just kind of doing it doing our
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our um best that we can do to deter the gun violence in in those corridors that we cover.
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So the camping is just to to get out and and um expose our you know let everybody
1 minute, 10 seconds
know we are here we are out here um and we're not only we we understand that the gun violence is is the the most
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important thing but then we have to also be um think about the public health community aspect of it and letting the
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community members know that we're here for them as well.
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My job is to have conversations with people to see what they want to do with their self far
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as get theirel situated, clean, help, what kind of help they need or what can we do to get them off the street. Before
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I was here, I was on Betty's Ford, you know, doing typical things like making my monies. I I wasn't always me tearing
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up the community, you know what I'm saying? Like, and I I felt like it was time for me to do something to give back to the community that I tore up. Some
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people might not understand our views because they never been through the things that we've been
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through. Like for instance, coming up, I had to run the electric cord to my
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neighbor's house for electricity. They don't know how it is to be without electricity or go just to go to your friend house cuz you know they cooking a
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night and they going to feed you. You know what I'm saying? It's it's hard growing up like that. Then you expect
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for someone to be on the same page as you, but you never been in a situation how they been living.
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A lot of people just need to come and canvas with us to see it for theirel what we go through in the community
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instead of just saying, "Oh, this is a bad community." Cuz everybody else that not bad or on drugs.
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Some people just need help with us being part of which is good
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about our ATV. We're in conjunction with Urban League of Central Carolina. So with us being part of them, we're able
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to help out with HVAC classes, electrician classes, CNA classes, also
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computer literacy classes. Um, and we bringing more stuff to the forefront where we can help the community because
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we know within our community, a lack of resources is really the problem. I've seen some of the young men that we have
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coming in the program have changed. you know, that were gang affiliated and now pulling theirelves back, you know, and
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some of their comrades and counterparts are seeing they're changing as well. So, with us helping them, they're helping someone else. Grew up here, there's it's
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a resource desert. Um there's never been a community center over here. Um
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no public library ever on Nation Florida Airwood Road. Um, and that's why we're
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working a lot with TNF and Swan trying to get to some community centers in this area. Um, never been a Boys and Girls
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Club. So, a lot of the resources that we haven't had, you had to find other stuff in the idol minus the devil playground.
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So, with us not having anything in this area, the young children have nothing to do.
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What I will say to community leaders what is important what we do in alternative to violence is that we reach
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those people or those individual that they don't collaborate too much with other organizations. We're trying to prevent the violence in the area provide
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resources to these people and keep it simple. So at some point it's very
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difficult and to our colleagues and some other uh people to communicate with
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Latino communities. So I feel like very important to have someone to reach this
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uh population this community h so we can work together. Maybe they don't know about so many help assistant that they
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can get because they are not um maybe interacting with other people just in their community.
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Uh, one of the one of the ways we actually connect with the with the youth is we wanted to make sure that we are
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embedded within the school, West Charlotte High School, knowing some of the um types of situations they have. I
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wanted to make sure that first part of the school year that I have my team to go over, introduce ourselves and just
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build a relationship with the staff and with the administration along with getting to know um the students there
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and um just our presence knowing that they can they can count on us.
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That's what we come in at. we come in and to give them that support that they need um that encouragement
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to bring out what they probably don't probably don't even know what's in let's see what let's get deeper let's see what's going on see if I can help you
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what is your talent what are you into what do you like let's get busy doing that so these girls need more mentorship
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programs they need more big sister types of of programs and mentors
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it's not a and it's needed.
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This type of work that we're doing is so important. Um, and we're going to we're going to always need
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um boots on the ground and people that that some of these young people can relate to and they trust and they're willing to listen to because a lot of
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times they're not willing to listen if they don't trust you. So, It's just changing the norms and and changing the behaviors uh of our
7 minutes, 30 seconds participants is something that we really really focus on and let them see, hey, this is the norm. This is a way this is
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what a normal a normal community looks like, you know, and you can have this.
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You can be a part of this. And I'm just trying again trying to change the mindset of them.