[Posted Dec. 26, 2007]

Youth Mentoring Program Based On Holiday Spirit Of Love And Giving

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal & Guide
 
    Christmas and Kwanzaa are observed for different reasons; however,  the holiday celebrations have one thing in common:  a shared commitment to express the spirit of love and giving.
       This time of year, we all strive to exemplify that idea during one of the most important holiday  periods of the year in the African American community.
       Donna Smith experienced it, she said, first hand.
       Late last year, a 13-year-old boy was beaten to death in the Coleman Place Community  by a group of other youths while walking to school.  Smith has grand children his age  and she was appalled at the gruesome act. She called a member of city council, and she called her friends and pastor to vent  her grief.  She wanted to know how such brutality could exist and how it could be stopped.

Brittney Hornsby, 14, and Destiny Butler, 12 both attend Lake Taylor Middle School.

Photo by Alvin Swilley

       Smith is one of the Program Directors for the   Southeastern Virginia Arts Association, (SEVAA), the outfit which organizes the AFR’AM Fest and other cultural events.  She was among a number of Hampton Roads professionals who were involved in Leadership Hampton Roads which  slates series of workshops to give them ideas on how to best serve the community of Hampton Roads.
       “I was thinking about a program I could develop to prevent—stop—what happened in Coleman Place and elsewhere,” she  said. “I felt we needed a program to help our children get their minds off the negative and focus on positive things to help them move forward in peace and alive.”
       Don Vail, the manager of  the Canon Production Plant in Chesapeake, was in her Leadership Hampton Roads class.  Smith said she and Vail struck up a dialogue and she got her idea for a youth program.
    “A light went on in my head. I went up to Don and said ‘I need 30 cameras’ for  a youth mentoring program I am developing. Can you can help me,” Smith recalls.  ”Well, he said you can’t get 30, but I can give you 20. I said that was a deal.”
       So during last November and early December, Smith, with help of a professional teaching photographer on loan from Canon,  ran  the “Stay Focus” Project, using  one of Canon’s most state of the art cameras and very important guiding philosophy.

  
       “We wanted to train them in the art of photography, not only as an art form but as an alternative to any negative behavior which may cause them or others harm,” said Smith. “Art can teach us much about life.  To create, you must stay focused on creating something positive. You must have discipline, as well, to make an idea come true. The idea we wanted to impress upon our children was to forget about the negative they have grown up with and concentrate on the positive in your life and community.”
       The program was  housed at the Historic Attucks Theater.  Smith’s and SEVAA’s efforts, she said,  are aimed at making a  contribution to the Hampton Roads ongoing effort to deter  area youths from joining potentially violent gangs. Further, Smith says that many youths in urban centers like Norfolk have few, if any, organized after school programs which can help develop athletic or artistic skills which will help develop their esteem and  keep them away from gangs.
       Smith said the youths came from various communities  in the urban landscape of the city of Norfolk. Initially she worried about the neighborhood rivalries stirring up tensions.  “But once the children got to know each other, their prejudices about people from ‘this or that’ neighborhood disappeared. That was a positive.”
       For six hours a week, especially during field trips, Smith said she and her colleagues allowed their young charges to practice and develop their potential as photographers.  
       Smith recalls taking them to the city’s Historic Church Street Corridor. Also, the budding photographers caught images of participants in the 2007 World AIDS Day Walk along the streets of Norfolk.
       “They took pictures of  buildings they never noticed before. They took pictures of  birds and trees—other objects they never noticed before,” recalled Smith. “When they got back to the classroom to see what they shot, they were so surprised and excited. It was like they were in another world choosing and editing the stuff they saw and photographed.”
       Smith said she is organizing a “Stay Focused” program for the spring for youth 9-12 years of age. The next session will include a writing component where students will not only be able to capture what they see as images with a camera but in words, journalistically.
       “I do not want them to think that this  will be a hobby,” she said. “I want to impress upon them that photography and writing are very  honorable careers they can pursue. I want to plant that seed in their minds now.”
       She also wants to recruit Mass Communications students from NSU and ODU to  help with the educational component of the program and aid in the mentoring the students.  Also, she wants to schedule an “exhibition” of the youths’ works to allow the community to share in their work.
       Smith said that what she managed to do  this holiday season was her gift to 20 youth as part of her Christmas tradition. Further, two of the seven principles of Kwanzaa are “Kuumba” (standing for creativity—to help build and maintain a strong community), and “Kujichagulia” (self determination—finding common interests and thinking about what's best for community.)
       “I do not want to stop. I have discovered the gift of using ordinary tools to  give our children the opportunity develop skills to ‘focus’ on something which will give them hope for the future and skills to help them be constructive and happy people,” she said. “I do not want to stop giving that gift if it means that not one more of our children is shot or beaten to death.”

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