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Five of Milwaukee's top high school basketball players are using their platforms to talk about the impact of gun violence in Milwaukee, something they say is deeply personal to them.
Jalen Brown, Rashaad Davis, Michael Rogers Jr., Londyn Hollins and Deuce McDuffie are the five faces of Playmakers for Peace, a new gun violence campaign launched in June by community activist Tiffany Yvonne.
Yvonne, originally from Chicago, has organized similar initiatives surrounding violence prevention among youth in Milwaukee for years.
The campaign aims to help young athletes in Milwaukee implement the communication, composure and conflict resolution skills they developed while playing sports to their lives outside of sports.
The five athletes, who Yvonne picked as the initiative's "founding members," hope to reach young people with one guiding message: Pause before you act.
The initiative publicly launched on Wednesday, July 1, after the Wisconsin Department of Violence Prevention provided a grant to fund it through the end of the year. Around 50 community members, most are family and friends, gathered at the event at BMO Towers celebrate the launch.
The players spoke about their own experiences with gun violence, saying they want to bring awareness to the prevalence of young deaths from gun violence in Milwaukee. In late April, a former teammate of McDuffie and Rogers Jr. was killed from a gunshot wound in the neighborhood.
"He was someone who I was really close with," Rogers Jr. said, talking about his former teammate. "Losing him really hurt me and I want to tell everyone that this is awful. It means a lot that there are people helping and trying to provide as many opportunities for us."
Yvonne told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the kids were in a music studio and all of them had guns. The death sparked a need for the young athletes to use their voices for to raise awareness for gun violence in the community, Yvonne said.
"[The campaign] was needed," Yvonne said. "There started to be a larger conversation around how when athletes don't make it out of high school basketball, they tend to go back to the block."
Yvonne said the grant will pay these young athletes to post on social media and host community events and camps to talk about violence prevention in the community rather than promoting a brand or product. This will help prepare the athletes, who are all Division I prospects, for college sports and the workplace, Yvonne said.
Brown, the Wauwatosa West high school graduate, will play basketball for the University of Wisconsin-Madison this fall. He hopes to help youth players overcome mental health struggles on and off the court, an issue that brought Brown to the campaign.
"There are a lot of ways that I can help the community out other than playing basketball," Brown said. "Having the confidence to think for yourself, knowing there are people around you that care about your life and what you do with it means strength."
Brown said he's excited to make change in his city and his home state next fall.
The players will post on social media, host events and youth camps in Milwaukee to spread awareness of gun violence and violence prevention.
Davis, who will play Division I basketball at Southern Utah University in the fall, hosted a youth basketball camp in June as part of the campaign. He said it was meaningful to be the person for kids to look up to, showing them there's someone who cares in addition to their parents.
"I was once a kid who looked up to players as well," Davis said. "It's important to speak on something that makes a difference coming from we come from."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee athletes using platform to curb city's gun violence
Continue reading...
Jalen Brown, Rashaad Davis, Michael Rogers Jr., Londyn Hollins and Deuce McDuffie are the five faces of Playmakers for Peace, a new gun violence campaign launched in June by community activist Tiffany Yvonne.
Yvonne, originally from Chicago, has organized similar initiatives surrounding violence prevention among youth in Milwaukee for years.
The campaign aims to help young athletes in Milwaukee implement the communication, composure and conflict resolution skills they developed while playing sports to their lives outside of sports.
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The five athletes, who Yvonne picked as the initiative's "founding members," hope to reach young people with one guiding message: Pause before you act.
The initiative publicly launched on Wednesday, July 1, after the Wisconsin Department of Violence Prevention provided a grant to fund it through the end of the year. Around 50 community members, most are family and friends, gathered at the event at BMO Towers celebrate the launch.
The players spoke about their own experiences with gun violence, saying they want to bring awareness to the prevalence of young deaths from gun violence in Milwaukee. In late April, a former teammate of McDuffie and Rogers Jr. was killed from a gunshot wound in the neighborhood.
"He was someone who I was really close with," Rogers Jr. said, talking about his former teammate. "Losing him really hurt me and I want to tell everyone that this is awful. It means a lot that there are people helping and trying to provide as many opportunities for us."
Yvonne told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the kids were in a music studio and all of them had guns. The death sparked a need for the young athletes to use their voices for to raise awareness for gun violence in the community, Yvonne said.
"[The campaign] was needed," Yvonne said. "There started to be a larger conversation around how when athletes don't make it out of high school basketball, they tend to go back to the block."
Yvonne said the grant will pay these young athletes to post on social media and host community events and camps to talk about violence prevention in the community rather than promoting a brand or product. This will help prepare the athletes, who are all Division I prospects, for college sports and the workplace, Yvonne said.
Brown, the Wauwatosa West high school graduate, will play basketball for the University of Wisconsin-Madison this fall. He hopes to help youth players overcome mental health struggles on and off the court, an issue that brought Brown to the campaign.
"There are a lot of ways that I can help the community out other than playing basketball," Brown said. "Having the confidence to think for yourself, knowing there are people around you that care about your life and what you do with it means strength."
You must be registered for see images attach
Brown said he's excited to make change in his city and his home state next fall.
The players will post on social media, host events and youth camps in Milwaukee to spread awareness of gun violence and violence prevention.
Davis, who will play Division I basketball at Southern Utah University in the fall, hosted a youth basketball camp in June as part of the campaign. He said it was meaningful to be the person for kids to look up to, showing them there's someone who cares in addition to their parents.
"I was once a kid who looked up to players as well," Davis said. "It's important to speak on something that makes a difference coming from we come from."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee athletes using platform to curb city's gun violence
Continue reading...
