Lisa Nutter
President, Philadelphia Academies, Inc.
Nothing is more inspiring than seeing young people succeeding often against significant odds. As President of Philadelphia Academies, Inc., I have the opportunity to witness this everyday. At Philadelphia Academies, Inc. we take our students along a journey that requires great vision and discipline on their part. We ask them to imagine themselves as accomplished adults. We ask them to commit to a set of goals for themselves and stay focused on those goals. We ask them to be vulnerable and open their lives to us, to let us in enough to help them stay on the path that they have defined for themselves. We demand that they be actors in their own lives and not allow others to define them.
We ask and demand all of this, and because we do our part, they do theirs. They succeed! Many would label the young people who participate in Philadelphia Academies, Inc.'s program as "at risk." The term has come to refer to young people who are at risk for failure, but what we prove every day, every month and every year is that with the right support from adults, young people are actually at risk for success.
Unfortunately, our kids are also at risk of being victims of violence. They experience it in their neighborhoods and in their schools—environments that should be safe havens. We shake our heads at the problem and we know that it must change, yet we seem paralyzed by the complexity and scale of the problem. We wonder what could possibly be going on in their homes that would lead them to commit violent acts. In some cases we say that the victims, because they are perpetrators of violence and crime themselves, deserve to die by the same sword they have used to harm others.
What we are ignoring is that these are young people largely between the ages of 16 and 24. These are our children. Some of them are children who have made bad choices and some of them are children who got caught in the cross-fire. The reality is that it doesn't matter how a young person dies. What matters is a life is missing—a life of potential, a life that could have found the cure for cancer, a life that could have been a public servant, a life that could have been our next great leader.
The adults…well, we keep setting the bar too low for ourselves and for our kids. Maybe we have low expectations because we've forgotten about the potential. If we can remember this potential, we can achieve a lot as a community to reduce gun violence. I know that we can help kids dream again and I know that we can help them have hope again. I know this because, while I can't escape the daily stories about gun violence, I've also seen how adults can organize themselves to protect young people emotionally and physically. I am an optimist because I am a witness of the possibilities and because I know that when it comes to reducing gun violence and saving our children's lives failure is not an option.
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