CHICAGO (AP) – Jaheim Wilson was 16 when he was shot and killed in April in Chicago and just a few months older than his cousin Alexis Willis. She’s what they call a Peace Warrior at North Lawndale College Prep on Chicago’s impoverished West Side. She never thought she’d lose a family member that way.
But at this school, most students know someone lost to gun violence.
Peace Warriors are trying to help. They break up fights, mediate verbal altercations and offer comfort to students who’ve lost loved ones.
They’ve also become leaders in the growing national youth movement aimed at ending gun violence, calling for more jobs and funding for schools and mental health clinics in their neighborhood.
But that’s the long game. The short-term goal is to stay alive this summer.
