(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a terrific leader making a difference and recognized for it.

She's Pam Johnson, founder and executive director of a terrific organization called the Anti-Violence Coalition of Hudson County.

Pamela, good to see you.

- Good to see you, good to see you as well, Steve.

- You got it, we're gonna put up the website of your organization as we speak.

You're a 2023 Russ Berrie Making a Difference honoree.

I've been honored to be a part of that event in cooperation with the Russ Berrie Foundation for years.

Talk about your organization and why you're so committed to fighting against violence, and why is this also so personal for you, Pam?

- Absolutely, Steve, thank you so much for that.

So growing up in Jersey City, I'm born and raised in Jersey City on the south side, where most of the violence is concentrated as it pertains to gun violence.

In 2014, it was a really stressful, intense time in Jersey City.

I do have my own history of being a gun violence survivor more than over 26 years ago when that happened.

But I think more importantly, when we started the coalition, it was less about me and more about the community and what was happening in 2014.

- Hold on, Pam, you just can't run past that.

You were 22 when someone shot you at a gathering in the neighborhood in Jersey City, in the West Bergen neighborhood.

I mean, you were a survivor.

- Yes, yes.

- You're very young at the time.

What caused you to become an activist to fight against violence, particularly in your community?

- You know, I think that when we talk about violence to outside individuals and outside individuals are just those individuals who don't live in our community, in our neighborhoods, but they're reading the newspapers and seeing the headlines and watching the news, and they're probably thinking like, oh my, like it's so sad what those people are going through and it's kind of like victims are always painted as individuals who may have had it coming and there are all type of victims, and it wasn't meant for me.

Four of my girlfriends were shot at the same time.

It wasn't meant for them, but still, those bullets end up connecting with our body.

It ended up doing some damage to us that we still live to this day.

Trauma will forever live in your body.

You can get treatment for it as we all have done and you can utilize that trauma and do very productive things in your life, but you'll always remember those moments where you thought that your life was going to end.

And so that will always give me what I need to continue this mission in this movement to help victims of violence because when I got shot, there were no services being offered to victims of violence.

In fact, you were further victimized by the same system designed to help you.

- So let's do this.

As we put up the website again, your organization offers programming in the areas of anti-bullying, peer mentoring, violence interruption, victim and family support, vocational training and educational seminars.

Go on the website to find out more about the Anti-Violence Coalition of Hudson County.

Let me ask you this, Pam, there's obviously no simple solution that will fix the violence, particularly the gun violence program in our communities, disproportionately in urban communities.

What are a couple things that will make a difference?

- So I think the main thing that will make a difference is having a voice for those who have not found their voice yet.

So after someone gets shot, if you're living in one of those neighborhoods concentrated by violence, you have not really had a chance to deal with hearing gun violence or hearing bullets, the sound of gunfire and dealing with the trauma that's associated with your community.

And so once it happens to you, you're really in a bad position because you don't know what to do.

So I think most importantly, to be able to show up for individuals and speak for them and listen to them and actually advocate for what they want you to do.

So it's a huge thing for us to show up to the scenes of violence, be there to provide support services for families.

Most individuals who are shot, they're shot in their own communities.

And so their family live around the corner or down the street.

So they show up and sometime they show up to see their loved one's body still on the ground waiting for the coroner's office.

And so police have to do their job, but we're also there to help support families and undergo their grief while we're also assisting police so we can help them do their job.

So I think it's important for us to listen to victims to respond in a way that we're responding wholesomely in a holistic way of treatment and healing, but it's also what Governor Murphy...

The reason why we're fully funded is because of Governor Murphy.

So I think that-- - Hold on one second.

The dollars were put in the state budget to support your organization.

I wanna be clear on that.

- Absolutely, so I would be remiss to, and not to make this a political thing, but it is politics, because those organizations who are on the front lines providing those services always lack the funding for whatever reason.

And I think to have legislators who are not afraid to put money in the budget in those communities who are having an issue with community violence and to treat community violence and gun violence like a health epidemic and treat the root causes that will underlyingly support the movement and also support victims and families, but in a very different way.

We're not simply talking about more law enforcement on the ground in those communities, we're talking about providing assistance to law enforcement to help prevent and intervene and deescalate.

- And lemme ask you this, do you believe on some level, or to what degree do you believe that if you watch the "six o'clock news", and I'm not talking about NJ Spotlight news, important programming every night, speaks for itself.

Let's just talk about local news, commercial programs and other sources of media, social media, et cetera, where violence in urban communities is so...

There's so many stories that too many of us just gloss over and don't even realize we're talking about people, not statistics.

Those statistics are people, are families who are devastated.

So it's my way of asking to what degree do you believe we've become somewhat desensitized?

- This is a real conversation that's happening in families' households and in communities in Jersey City as well across the New Jersey and any urban community.

Desensitized, so I work with a lot of youth daily, as young as five and as old as 25 and much older as well in various programs that we run.

And I think that it's become very normal, and so we have to not make it so normal.

So we have those conversations with youth and their families and we want them to know that although you have seen and lost so many friends that you grew up with and went to school with, nothing is normal about that.

And in a lot of cases where we look in communities where there is an explosion of mental health episodes and alcohol and drug abuse in different neighborhoods and homelessness and just traumatic things happening in those neighborhoods outside of gun violence, but it is connected to that gun violence that's happening in those communities and that unhealed trauma.

So we make sure that we're addressing it by saying that there is a healing component needed, but nothing about this is normal.

And if you're ready to start your healing, we're ready to walk with you one step at a time to get you to where you need to be in order to have a successful life.

- That's Pamela Johnson, founder and executive director of the Anti-Violence Coalition in Hudson County, 2023 Russ Berrie Awardee Honoree for Making a Difference, making a difference every day.

Pam, thank you so much, we appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

PSEG Foundation.

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And by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

And by BestofNJ.com.

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