‘Walk away to live another day’: This Miami summer camp focuses on violence prevention

An image of a young boy with a black eye and a gun is projected on an overhead screen before a group of teens at Sandrell Rivers Theater in Liberty City.

A circle of teen participants stared at the art during the Peace Summit, a three day summer camp hosted by Dream Defenders, an organization that aims to empower youth with life skills and expose them to cultural arts. The teens are from historically Black and brown neighborhoods like Miami Gardens and Liberty City.

In this exercise, summer camp leader Calvin Early asks the group to give their interpretations of what they see in the image and what the imagery means to them. He pointed to those who eagerly raised their hands.

“Gun violence is slowly taking over his mind and he doesn’t know how to stop it,” says one of the teens. “There’s no way to [stop] it because of the stigma.”

“A kid growing up from a place he can’t feel comfortable…his life is just falling apart and there’s no one to tell him that everything will be OK,” another said.

More of the youth shout out their interpretations: He can’t escape the projects. Peer pressure. Pressure to pick up a gun. Pressure to defend himself and his neighborhood.

Early and his summer camp co-leader James Klinn ask, “Who thinks a lot of people are having the same thoughts as the teen in the illustration?”

Almost everyone raised their hands.

The purpose of the exercise was to give context to the Grammy-award winning artist, Nas and his songs about gun violence., exposing the students to artists that resemble them. Later on, the group would analyze his song “I Gave You Power,” and take note of how the artist used his music as an outlet to rise above his circumstances.

Dream Defenders was launched in 2012 after the killing of Trayvon Martin, a teen born in Miami who was shot to death in Sanford, Florida. Since its founding the organization has marched through the streets, launched urgent care centers and started summer camps for teens.

This is the organization’s first year hosting the Peace Summit, a shorter summer camp focused on violence intervention and healing for at-risk youth. Over 120 kids ages 10 to 18 signed up for the program. Some of the teens were a part of youth planning committees established through year-long partnerships with Dream Defenders during the school year.

This summer camp was the brainchild of Vivian Azalia, the youth director at Dream Defenders, who was also once a teen in South Florida who was impacted by gun violence.

She was 20 when a friend was killed by Miami Beach police, she said. Since then, she said, every year she met at least one person who was impacted by gun violence here in Miami.

“It’s less about the violence, and more about who you surround yourself with and how you can show up for people and especially for young people,” she said. “That was kind of the pivot of my life, of me joining Dream Defenders.”

Azalia and Dream Defenders partnered with some schools throughout the school year. Some of those students attended the camp and were part of the youth planning committee. Other participants came from foster care homes across South Florida. The students designed the flyers for the Peace Summit, some of the summit’s swag and even choose the topics of the breakout sessions.

Thursday the students participated in workshops that covered the basics of self defense, arts and crafts and creating vision boards.

Teens in the vision board group were asked two simple questions: “What does art mean to you?” and “What two words describe you?”

The purpose of the exercise was to create a board of how the teens envisioned themselves or their future.

But 17-year-old student from My Life My Power International Preparatory Academy, Jorace Bryant never thought about those two questions. Thirty minutes later, he came up with two visuals to describe how he feels about himself and how he thinks others perceive him. One side showed the abstract lines flowing out of a magazine cut out that said “eternal.” The abstract lines depict the energy that flows out of him, like if he lifted his hands you could almost feel his energy, he said. The right side purposely looked plain with a few sad faces to represent how others often think he’s sad because of his face.

But at the Peace Summit he was talkative, and enjoyed the opportunity to sit and think about himself in the form of art.

“It’s peaceful and great for the youth,” Bryant said. “This is like free time. When I was at recess and we had to go outside, that was fun for me. Sometimes you do stuff for your inner child.”

Akilah Evans said in her breakout group they discussed school board budgets, access to free health clinics and affordable transportation. This was the first in her 17 years that anyone has asked for her opinion on her own community, she said.

“I know that some people care or at least organizations care,” Evans said.

In another breakout, Kimberly Muhammad taught the kids how to prevent looking like “a mark,” or a victim.

“Being aware of your circumstances, walking around, being alert, looking people in their face, those are the types of things that hopefully can deter somebody from attacking you,” she said.

Muhammad grew up in the suburbs of Tampa Bay but moved to Liberty City around 20 years ago with her husband. Her children’s experience growing up was a stark contrast from her own childhood, which made her want them to be prepared to defend themselves.

“They’ve been a witness to a lot of things that, me as a child in high school…I hadn’t seen anything like that,” she said. “So definitely, the seriousness and wanting to teach[self-defense] to my children and other young people and keeping them in a certain mindset is definitely a personal thing from what I’ve experienced in living here as well.”

Friday will be dedicated to peacemakers in conflict and how to get the youth to walk away from violence. The team will focus on mental health crises, and coping with emotions.

On Saturday, teens will make personal pledges to walk away from violence and commit to peace this summer.

“The peacemakers always say, walk away to live another day,” said Azalia.