Youth Led Initiative Focuses on Missing Children

SAVE OUR CHILDREN: Panelists and participants pose after the SOC Town Hall at Merriweather Library. Save Our Children : A New Youth Led Initiative That Focuses On Missing Children In Buffalo

On Saturday, November 20, seats were filled at the Merriweather Library’s Eva Doyle Auditorium for the first of its kind youth-led “Save Our Children” ( SOC) Town Hall. It was a solution driven meeting of the minds with youth at the forefront, raising their voices of concern about safety and offering solutions about the crisis of missing Black and Brown children that plague our community. Hosted by Open Buffalo’s Youth action Program and Project Mona’s House, public officials and community stakeholders served as panelists that included Louis Petrucci, President of the Buffalo Board of Education; Kareema Morris, Founder of Bury the Violence; multi disciplined artist educator Edreys Wajed; Chief Dawn Kent, special victims unit of the Buffalo Police Department; artist, activist and founder of Feed Buffalo Drea d’Nur and a representative from GLYS of WNY. “We came together to talk about solutions while we address the disparity between reporting and the attention that Black and Brown children receive vs our White counterparts. Solutions developed implemented and owned by youth,” said Project Mona’s house founder Kelly Galloway. “It’s so inspiring and empowering to see youth really take matters into their own hands and say regardless of what police or schools say we know what’s happening in our own community and we know that we not only have the responsibility to keep each other safe, we know have a responsibility to use our leadership skills to develop into the people we need to be, “ said Jillian Hanesworth, Director of Leadership Development at Open Buffalo . In a CNN report The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database lists 424,066 missing children under 18 in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available. About 37 percent of those children are Black, even though Black children only make up about 14 percent of all children in the United States - and that number is climbing. One core solution presented by the Youth Action team is the forthcoming launch of SOC Alert Line, a unique text hotline to help identify missing children in Buffalo. “The youth have been challenging me since March with this idea of raising awareness of saving children and the vulnerabilities they go through being trafficked and the negative labels they have when their safety is being jeopardized,” said Youth Organizer at Open Buffalo Devon Patterson The subscription based alert line will send text alerts to subscribers and showcase pictures of all missing children in Buffalo age 24 and younger. A trial run is scheduled for January of 2022 and interested subscribers can text the word SAVE to 1-877 -934- 7283 to receive alerts. ( The trial subscriptions is on first come first serve basis.)

Learn more about the Youth Action Program at openbuffalo.org and Project Monas House at projectmonashouse.com . Spread the word and text the word SAVE to 1-877-934-7283 to receive text alerts for missing children. ~ staff writer. "In order to avoid lack or poverty of purpose in our gift giving, we agreed that Kwanzaa gifts must always include two items:1.) a book, and 2.) a heritage symbol - regardless of what else is given. This stipulation clearly points to our priorities of building and liberating our people, The book reflects and reinforces our commitment to education as an indispensable part of the struggle for liberation and reconstruction, It fits firmly in the framework of the Kawaida contention that a key struggle is to recover and reconstruct our culture and history and begin to reshape reality in our own image and according to our own needs." from Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture by Dr. Maulana Karenga

The 1619 Project created by Nikole Hannah-Jones

The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole HannahJones and Renee Watson (childrens)

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Dwayne by Dwayne Wade

Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in

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