INDIANAPOLIS — During the continued series, Youth Alternatives To Violence and Crime, or YATVAC, we’ve learned there’s no shortage of individuals and community groups that are working to stop youth violence and crime in and around the city.
This past weekend, several of those individuals and groups gathered at District Tap in Keystone to hear from each other about what’s working and what still needs to be done.
“We are concerned with what’s going on in our community, in our nation, and world,” Mary Faye Godwin president of the Indianapolis Professional Association said. “We certainly want to do all that we can to open up the hearts and minds of persons in our community so they can hear about what’s going on.”
Godwin and her staff of volunteers, in partnership with the activist group ‘Let’s Talk,’ put community stakeholders at various table to listen, learn and take notes about youth crime and violence and what’s being done to stop it.
Circle City Broadcasting’s Anchor Derricke Dennis was among a panel of stakeholders who addressed the audience.
“I get to Indianapolis last summer, just off of the wave of violence that we saw in our city, and immediately our station owner and management decided they wanted to do something about it,” Dennis said. “So they started the initiative we call YATVAC or Youth Alternatives to Violence and Crime.”
It turns out, our station initiative hasn’t gone unnoticed by IPA, or by community members and by law enforcement. Kendale Adams, deputy chief of criminal investigations for the IMPD, says awareness is key.
“It’s harder to get a drivers’ license in Indiana than it is to get a gun at 18,” he told the audience. “That’s the reality that we live in.”
He says mentoring changed his life and put him on a path to success.
“We know when kids are mentored, they are 52% more likely to graduate from high school, they are 44% more likely to be a leader in their industry, they are 64% more likely to go to college,” Adams said. “You know the other reality of mentoring, if we don’t do it, they are also more likely to join a group or a gang.”
Charlie Garcia is another community stakeholder, working as a local businessman and Hispanic community activist. He sees part of the solution to youth violence and crime as an economic one, long term, with responsible committed adults leading the way.
“Often times, there’s very little you can do in five to 10 years. If you look out 30 to 40 years and you have consistency, and you can have a group of individuals that are totally committed to a cause,” he said. “I’ve seen it cause I’ve done it. You can change a community with consistency long term. That’s the key.”
The Indianapolis Professional Association’s Spring networking luncheon has been happening since 2004.
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