- We continue our conversation about gun violence with two leaders who are making a difference every day.

A'Dorian Murray-Thomas is the founder and CEO of SHE Wins.

She's been with us many times, and a board member of the Newark Board of Education.

And Al-Tariq Best is the CEO and founder of the HUBB Arts and Trauma Center, which stands for Help Us Become Better.

Al-Tariq and A'Dorian, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you for having us.

- You know, you can talk about the statistics in gun violence, and people debate it on a policy level, but both of you, unfortunately, have experienced this on a very personal level and chosen to take that tragic experience in your past and do something meaningful with it.

You're both Russ Berrie awardees/honorees for Making a Difference, and that's how we met.

A'Dorian, please share with folks your personal experience and then the transition to creating SHE Wins, please.

- Thanks, Steve.

Really, really happy to be here.

My father, who was raised and born in the great country of Guyana, came to this country for the American dream and was granted an American nightmare.

Him and my mother had me, and then, at seven years old, though, when I was seven, he was gunned down two blocks from our house on his way to pay my school tuition.

And so, a lot of my work right now with youth mentoring work and anti-violence through Youth Violence Prevention starts from that story and really wanting to create a space where other young women like me, who lost a parent or sibling to gun violence, wouldn't have to suffer alone and would be able to use their stories to transform their lives and their communities.

And so, it's really from having a network of supports when I was growing up, even in the midst of my trauma, having folks like my mother, having really great teachers, folks who prayed for me, thought about me, I seek to create that same exact system rooted in sisterhood, service, and self-actualization for young women affected by violence today - As you look at the website for SHE Wins, go on and find out more, because A'Dorian is a leader that we've featured many times on our programming, making a difference every day.

Find out more about what they're doing.

Al-Tariq, please share a bit about your experience and its connection to creating the HUBB Arts and Trauma Center.

- Yes, so, about 17 years ago, me and my sons were in Newark.

I grew up in Newark, raised in Newark, and survived a lot of the traumas in Newark.

But I would always brag about how proud I am of Newark, and my children's mother just didn't like Newark because of the violence.

And I convinced her to let me take my children to a cookout that day, and, unfortunately, coming across Bergen Street right before you get to Clinton Avenue, these guys was beating up another guy right in front of my car, and my sons seen this whole situation.

At this point, my sons was frantic and started saying, "Dad, there's blood."

You know, "They're beating him up.

There's blood all over the place."

But at one point he said, "He has a gun, Dad, he has a gun."

And so I swerved around another car, got my sons out of harm's way.

We seen a cop on the next corner, right before Bigelow.

I told the cop exactly what was going on.

He made a big swerve.

As he was going back towards where the violence was happening, we heard a gunshot go off.

Something inside of me snapped.

I start yelling and screaming at my sons, "Don't ever let me catch you in these streets, blah, blah, blah."

My 14-year-old son at that time says, "Dad, you always talk about being part of the solution, not part of the problem.

What are you doing about it?"

And at that moment, from the mouths of babies, my son put a challenge on me, and I felt like he called me a hypocrite because I was talking about doing something for the community and wasn't doing anything.

I took everything I knew from the music business and started a nonprofit.

Didn't know what I was doing, I just knew that I wanted to serve and never be in a position ever again where anybody, especially our children, asks us what we're doing for our community and not have an answer.

And 17 years later I've been a response to that question ever since and just created a space where children can understand their purpose in life, understand that their situations don't have to dictate their destinations, and here we are.

- I'm a student of leadership.

You're seeing it right in front of you, folks, making a difference, stepping up, not being a bystander jumping in to make a difference, particularly in your own community.

Real quick, A'Dorian, could you talk about some of the services that SHE Wins provides?

And then I'll do the same thing with Al-Tariq, particularly as it relates to gun violence.

- Yeah, so our goal is to really make sure that young people don't have to suffer alone.

What we know is that, when we look at the data, young people who lose a loved one, particularly prematurely by gun violence, domestic abuse, et cetera, they're more likely to drop out of high school more likely to abuse substances, more likely to have real reactions to the traumas that they experience, and those real reactions negatively impact the quality of their lives.

But the data also shows that, when you have resources in place that are protective factors, like mentors, like access to quality schools, like connections with other young people who are doing positive things in your community, those same things that they were at risk of before are erased, and so, at SHE Wins, that is our goal.

This is what we do.

We create systems of support through pipelines of sisterhood, service, and self-actualization that make sure that young people who are most proximate to the issues of gun violence and other issues of trauma in our city are more likely to do well despite.

And so, we have a summer leadership academy that's free, rooted in having women come and mentor the young ladies, having peers mentor other peers.

Most of our programs in the summer are completely youth-ran, high school students, college students serving as youth leaders and facilitators to their young women.

And then, of course, social action and service, making sure our young people are in the community being the change they want to see.

At SHE Wins, we believe that young people don't need saving.

When given the tools and resources, they can save themselves.

And so, what does it look like to have a city that's being transformed by young people?

It looks like having young people create social action projects that improve childhood literacy.

It looks like having young people volunteer every year at the HUBB's Thanksgiving for the home-insecure communities in the park.

So that's really our work, Steve.

It's creating these interventions during the summer and school year that support young people to support themselves and transform their communities.

- By the way, having known A'Dorian for many years now, and one of the first interviews she ever did was with us, to see her grow to be the leader she is, making a difference every day, I want to thank the folks at the Russ Berrie Foundation for introducing us, as I've been honored to host that event for 27 years and meet leaders like you.

But Al-Tariq, as you listen to your colleague and friend talking about what SHE Wins is doing, what is the connection between providing those services?

Because your organization, HUBB, provides services as well.

What's the connection between those services each one of you and other not-for-profits provide and gun violence?

- Yes.

Everything that Dorian said is exactly, and that's why she's my sister partner.

Like, we grew up in this game together and understanding the traumas that we grew up in Newark with.

Unfortunately, we both had these personal experiences that turned into passion for us.

And I took a dilapidated space, 9,000 square feet of dilapidated space, and turned it into a safe haven.

For the last 11 years, youth have been growing up in the HUBB, but we take them, we take the credible messengers, we take art therapists, we take social workers, and we create this plan for them to understand what it is that they've been going through, peeling back the layers of the trauma that they've been going through.

And most of the young people that are sent to us are sent through the Newark Police Department or Newark Public Schools, the ones that are out there causing havoc, right?

Unfortunately, we don't give up on them.

Society have given up on them and we take them and show them the better side of themselves.

We take them through interest-based mentoring, right, and show them that they can be anything that they want through financial literacy, health and wellness, grooming and self-efficacy.

We built the studio with all of these things that they love, so we use that as incentives to come off the street.

Don't do that.

You can do this and not have to look over your shoulders by doing that other thing.

And it's been great that we've been able to change them, because they get to talk with their peers, that's credible messages that have changed their life around, right?

So we couple them with the social workers.

Steve, I've seen you.

- Yeah, let me, I wish we had twice, three times the amount of time we have, but I want to follow up on something.

So, as I listen to two of you, two people I've gotten to know in my work, and, obviously, as I said many times, I respect so much, there are some people who are listening, saying, well, wait a minute, but what's all the debate about gun violence having to do with public policy around assault weapons, which is important, and concealed carry laws, which is important, and Stand Your Ground laws, which are important.

Each one of you are talking about the work you're doing in urban, not urban communities across the board, but Newark in particular, and some folks are saying, well, that's not a discussion about gun violence.

That's a discussion about two not-for-profit leaders who are trying to make a difference.

First A'Dorian, then you, Al-Tariq, I'm arguing that is connected to gun violence.

Please make the connection more precisely than I'm doing, A'Dorian, please?

- There's some who say that every murder can create more murderers, but what do you mean?

That means that when we don't deal with the after-effect of the violence, the people who lost the kid, who lost the brother, who lost the friend, if we don't nip that in the bud and find resources to wrap around that community, you can create more violence than the initial violence itself.

And so, to your point, Steve, the work that myself, that Al-Tariq, that folks like those at the City of Newark's Anti-Violence work, the work that we're doing is critical because it is trying to gut out the violence at the root, one, by making sure that there isn't more offshoots of violence from the initial moment of violence that we're responding to, but also trying to create systemic solutions that contribute to the systemic issues of violence.

- It's about breaking the cycle of, I'm sorry for interrupting, is it about breaking the cycle?

Because say someone says, well, just let's have fewer guns.

Let's cut down on the number of guns matters, but you're talking about breaking the cycle of gun violence, right?

- That's right.

That's right.

And you can only break the cycle, too, if you get at the root causes.

And some of those root causes are lack of support from homes and families, lack of quality schools, poverty.

These are the things that contribute to violent behavior and violent incidents.

And so, our work is not only trying to help young people who are intimately affected by violence, but also trying to help young people make sure they're not in positions where they are more likely to be engaged in these behaviors.

At SHE Wins, we take girls every year on free college tours across the country.

We take them to the United Nations Foundation, where they participate in leadership conferences with girls across the world.

When you help young people see who they are and who they can be, they will rise.

- And what's possible.

- And that's what's possible.

- That's right.

- I cut you off, A'Dorian.

Finish your point, I'm sorry.

- Yeah, no, you hit it right on the nail, when you help young people see what's possible, my mom would always say that no one rises to low expectations.

And so, when you have the expectations become higher for young people, they rise to them.

And when you do that, they not only transform their lives, but they transform the lives of those in their communities.

- Al-Tariq, jump in, connected to gun violence specifically.

- Yes, and you hear many of those people say hurt people hurt people.

Yeah, they do, but I don't let it stay there, right?

Hurt people hurt people, but healed people and healing people can heal people.

So our job is to create some healing around them and make them understand that they don't have to be out there doing those things.

I get the shooters.

I get the shooters, and they're putting their guns down.

They're putting their guns down and picking up a microphone.

They're putting their guns down and picking up a camera.

They're putting their guns down and they're picking up tools that's gonna help them in their life to not be out there shooting anybody, and it's all about peeling back the layers and understanding what traumas that they face and change those behaviors.

We have to change the behaviors, because our parents didn't teach us.

A lot of those parents didn't teach us, and you can't teach what you didn't know, right?

So we gotta change that behavior.

We gotta reconstruct their mindset to know that that's not the right way to do things.

A'Dorian, 30 seconds left.

The greatest satisfaction, I've asked you this before, I'll ask you again, in doing what you do every day at SHE Wins, particularly as it relates to stopping the cycle of violence, is?

- Seeing young people lead and seeing young people heal.

At SHE Wins, I have girls who used to be the ones engaged in violent behavior in their school.

- In gangs as well?

- Some, some were and some were not.

But, often, the issue is, when you don't know how to deal with your own traumas, you react and you don't respond, and you create and engage and perpetuate systems of violence.

And so, some of those same young people who used to be creating violence are the ones helping, creating healing circles within our organization and beyond.

And so, seeing young people who were once hurt now doing the healing, and they were hurt and they were therefore hurting people, they're healing other people.

That's the greatest satisfaction.

- Thank you.

Al-Tariq, your final words, your satisfaction greatest is?

- I love A'Dorian.

The healing is in the wound, right?

So once we are able to tackle that and see them change their behavior, seeing them change their mind about how things are done and how they lead other people.

A'Dorian hit it on the point.

You know, they're the ones that's leading the charge.

They're the ones that's leading the healing circles.

They want different, but they have to be shown different, right?

We have to love on them and not take away that, just because they made some bad decisions.

We've all made bad decisions and we've grown from it, 'cause we're still here today.

If you wake up today, it's another chance to do something right, and that's what we're doing, providing safe havens for them to understand their potential to do better.

Help us become better.

- Al-Tariq, A'Dorian, just thank you, thank you for every time you've been with us, every time you've shared, every time you tell your story and the story of others, but also for the work you do every day in your two very important not-for-profit organizations making a difference.

You honor us being with us, and you also honor the Russ Berrie Foundation for being winners of the award for Making a Difference.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- And I promise, folks, we'll continue our conversation about gun violence from a variety of perspectives.

We don't check off the box and say, "Hey, we did that program."

It's not a program, it's an ongoing conversation.

I'm off my soapbox.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let'’s be healthy together.

Newark Board of Education.

PSEG Foundation.

PSC.

The North Ward Center.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

And by Prudential Financial.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

Part of the USA Today Network.

And by ROI-NJ.

How do you create change?

By cultivating hope.

And we see that every day, in the eyes of our preschoolers, in the souls of the seniors in our adult day program, in the minds of the students at Robert Treat Academy, a national blue ribbon school of excellence, in the passion of children in our youth leadership development program, in our commitment to connections at the Center for Autism, and in the heart of our community, the North Ward Center, creating opportunities for equity, education, and growth.