Coming together to pinpoint Cleveland's problems and propose solutions: Dear Cleveland

This reporting is supported by the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism National Fellowship.

Other stories in the series include:

Dear Cleveland: Help us improve police relations and our "life skills"

Dear Cleveland: We're ready to talk, will you take us seriously?

Dear Cleveland: To learn, you first have to listen

Dear Cleveland: Seeking young voices on life in the city and how to make it better

Tim Harrison, Special to The Plain Dealer

Tim Harrison, Special to The Plain Dealer

April 27, 2018

A council comes together

CLEVELAND, Ohio — They each have a story.

A 17-year-old still mourning the loss of a friend to gun violence. An 18-year-old who contemplated suicide, and knows she wasn’t the only one. A 16-year-old who lost trust in police after they responded indifferently to her rape. A 22-year-old working to overcome the childhood beatings that made him feel unworthy. 

Each member of the Empowering Youth Exploring Justice Impact 25 Youth Council had a reason for wanting to make a change in their community, their neighborhood, their city.

The 18 young people first came together in November meeting over five Saturdays, and time in between, with the ultimate goal of making recommendations to  Police Chief Calvin Williams,  representatives from the Cleveland Indians, and a host of other city and community leaders. 

That presentation is Monday.

We’re sharing their journey as part of The Plain Dealer’s “Dear Cleveland” series, an effort to bring young voices and perspectives to the forefront of the conversation. We are using some of the council members’ writing, along with videos they made to chronicle the process. 

— Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer

The council meets: By Jerald King, 17
 
It was an early Saturday morning, and it was cold outside but the sun was rising and the snow was melting as I left my home in Cleveland's Kinsman neighborhood, I was preparing myself for a new experience, an unknown challenge.

When I walked into the downtown warehouse work space where I’d eventually spend over 40 hours over a six-month period, the room was filled with people of different ages, genders, races and backgrounds from across the city.

Some appeared shy or tired. Others seemed curious. At first, you could hear a pin drop with the silence.

We started to get to know each other with introductions and icebreakers. It was a powerful way for us learn about each other, our experiences and backgrounds.

We talked about what we saw wrong in our community — injustices, we called them — and encounters we had with police. 

We also talked about the things that made us feel silenced or wronged by society. 

Tiara Jacobs, 16

Many, like 16-year-old council member Tiara Jacobs (pictured above), were deeply concerned about the harm violence was doing to young people. It was why she joined the council, she later shared.

“I remember watching the news and hearing about a young boy who was playing football in his yard, was shot and killed,” Jacobs, 16, said.

“This story really stuck out to me because of how young he was… it was not the first time I had heard of such a tragedy like it. It almost seemed like a pattern.”

The more we talked, the more we understood our purpose. 

 We would be speaking on behalf of young people to leaders like Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams.

If we did our job, we could make a positive and effective change for others.

That same day we heard from entrepreneur LaRick Calhoun, the first of many people who shared ideas or inspiration.  As a young man, LaRick told of his trials and tribulations. But through the hard times he had his heart and mind set on doing what's right. He told us that each council member had different gifts and talents we could contribute to the process.  “Change the minds of people who think change isn’t possible,” he said. 

LaRick was one of many speakers who came in to give us advice and inspiration. 

Brainstorming

At the end of the day came our hardest task: picking the problem we thought was most important to solve.

We brainstormed by hanging up posters and listing with Post-it notes the problems council members cared about: poor learning conditions; lack of mental health resources; physical and sexual abuse; racism and racial disparities; police brutality; gun violence.

It was going to be tough for all of us to agree on what was most important. We decided to take turns presenting our arguments on the issues.

Then we took a vote. 

Sophia Higginbottom (above), a 22-year-old Americorps City Year member from Slavic Village, talks about narrowing down the many problems the council members want work to change to just a few.

Picking priorities: By Maranda Priah, 17

When our council started to meet we were all individuals talking about problems we saw in our community or experienced ourselves.

Like feeling targeted by police.

Or feeling unprepared for “real world” situations, like taking the bus to school or dealing with stress and managing our time. 

No matter what, we could not pick just one thing that mattered most. 

There were too many things young people needed and were not getting.

It took a lot of tough debate and discussion but finally we decided to “pitch” community leaders to help us create social awareness around two main things: improving relationships between young people and police, and life skills education.

Just when we settled on those problems, we had to start talking about how we might work to fix them.

It was important to make sure everyone came to a consensus on those ideas, too. 

We started by going around the room and sharing our thoughts on the improvements we wanted made.   

 Then we broke into small groups to discuss what might work.

When coming up with solutions, we had a lot of questions to ask ourselves. Are our solutions feasible? Would our participants be comfortable with it? 

We wanted to be open to suggestions from many people, including ones who make policy and the law.

We also knew there was another important group of people we needed to hear from:Police.

Meeting officers

At the end of our first session, we had the chance to chat for a few minutes with two patrol officers, Antonio Andino and Devan Wynn (pictured above). Behind the badges and stern faces, they seemed like people just trying to do a job.

The officers then shared with us how it felt to walk out their homes and not knowing if they’ll ever see their family again. 

In some of our neighborhoods, we felt that way too sometimes. 

We decided we need to learn more from their side before we finished our work. 

[This story was originally published by The Plain Dealer.]