CLEVELAND, Ohio — An emergency community meeting that started at Collinwood Recreation Center on Tuesday will move past the building’s walls and into the Cleveland community to start building safe spaces for children in the area.
This comes after El Jay’Em, the Founder of PVPO, or the People’s Violence Prevention Office, said the community-led office launched on Tuesday following several deadly and violent youth-involved incidents that have recently happened in Cleveland.
"My first reaction to everything was what the bleep, but now we have to do true transformative change,” said El Jay’Em. “We have to stop thinking that power is close proximity to government because it is not. Again, the power lies within the people.”
El Jay’Em said PVPO has been around for some time.
Now, she hopes to continue addressing prevention, trauma healing and safety coordination.
"Power really lies with the people, and that the people are the ones who can create that connection and really create that safety to make a safer environment for our kids,” said El Jay’Em.
Other initiatives include healing the disconnection that leaves children unseen and emphasizing collective accountability for children’s safety.
El Jay’Em said they’re also co-developing a 90-day neighborhood safety response plan and mapping local assets of who to call, where to go and how to act when harm or crisis occurs, which Councilman Anthony Hairston said is a good start.
"We don’t live on every single street or in every single neighborhood in Cleveland, but the people do, and they are the ones who can tell us best,” said Hairston.
Concerned parents like Damian Calvert told News 5 it’s time.
"We can’t wait for them to come into our communities to do it. We have to initiate and have skin in the game too,” said Calvert. “I’m all about the healing, and I’m all about operationalizing whatever it is we come up with together in unity to see it to fruition.”
Even Jasmine Peterson, a concerned Cleveland resident, believes Tuesday’s meeting can help the community create an effective plan to move forward.
"If parents aren’t holding their kids accountable and our community isn’t holding other people accountable and ourselves accountable … we can’t make a change,” said Peterson.
This is why Councilman Mike Polensek, who joined Tuesday’s conversation, said it’ll be up to neighbors helping neighbors.
"You will see a difference in this city if people become stakeholders,” said Polensek.
The next community meeting will take place at the City Mission on Nov. 11.
