Emergency Town Hall Meeting – Guns Violence in the Black Community – Peace Alliance Network!

On Saturday, November 13, 2010 (12:30 pm at Schenley High School – former Reizenstein school) Community Empowerment Association, Inc., in collaboration with the Peace Alliance Network will host an Emergency Town Hall meeting to facilitate and promote a united meaningful dialog on the impact of Gun Violence in the Black Community, and to forge a network of peace.

The Goals of the Town Hall Meeting are:

• Empowering our communities and working to develop public policy recommendations to target the root causes of Interpersonal and Community violence Lack of Economic and Workforce Development, lack of Effective Education of Students, the Deterioration of the Social Fabric of the Black Family, and Guns:  How did they get into the Hands of our Babies?
• Reminding us that it is the Power Of People’s Voice  that effects change;
• The Introduction of the Commission For A Better Life.  This Coalition is designed to broker opportunities with mainstream systems for communities, families and at risk youth, through promoting legislative and policy changes to government for adoption into Law to support the well being of communities of color.

We have invited elected officials from Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh, Directors of Public Authorities, School Board Representatives to come out and participate in this historic event. 

A press conference will be held at 12:30 pm prior to the start of the town hall meeting.  Mothers and families who have lost loved ones to violence, including Reverend & Mrs. Grayson, youth and concerned community residents will be on hand during the event - standing collectively.

We must come together to share knowledge, information and experiences about what works.  Creating a network of parents, youth, community and faith based organizations, elected officials, law enforcements, educators, public health providers, to stand together in the fight against GUN VIOLENCE and children dying in the Black Community.  The Peace Alliance Network over the next year will be continuing Focus Groups to address root causes to begin to work for a more positive outcome for our Community.  Today begins the first dialogue with these Focus Groups, to set the tone of  what will happen throughout this year. 

CEA along with concerned residents, families that have lost loved ones to violence, faith based organizations, and other grassroots organizations have come together under the banner of The Peace Alliance Network, of the Urban Peace Initiative – to deracinate the root causes of violence and work to mitigate it as it rears its ugly head.

The Peace Alliance Network has been travelling from neighborhood to neighborhood throughout the county spreading a message of hope and empowering residents to unite as we use our collective energy to strategically dismantle these root causes by using a public health model of prevention, reclaiming the souls and transforming the minds of our youth lost in this abyss we call violence.

“Youth violence is preventable, not inevitable.  It is a predictable behavior in the unsafe environments where people live.  Rooted in a complex set of underlying issues, violence is a learned behavior that can be unlearned or not learned in the first place.” (UNITY, 2008)