INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis Youth Commission is taking on the city's violent crime issue, and one teenager is leading the effort.
Ronnelle Collins is just 16 years old, but he has already formed strategic partnerships with city leaders and just completed the Violence Prevention Fellowship offered by the Marion County Prosecutor's Office and he's getting ready to team up with the Race and Cultural Relation Leadership Network.
Collins also is part of the Public Safety Reform Committee.
“I grew up around a lot of poverty and violence I grew up in not the best parts just wanting to see better is what keeps me going, as a kid I always moved a lot,” Collins said.
Collins is also a young entrepreneur who is redefining the word “hood” with his clothing line Holding Our Own Destiny. The clothing line name itself seems to be a metaphor for what he's trying to do in the Circle City.
“We should attack the root of the problem which includes mental illness poverty,” Collins said.
He's a busy teenager but he says its sorrow that is driving him.
“Over the past year I lost two people then I lost two to the system,” Collins said.
He's going all in to make sure he doesn't lose another friend.
