PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An effort to reach Philadelphia teenagers with a compelling argument to reject gun violence is drawing on the creativity of teens themselves.
Youth advocacy group YEAH Philly teamed up with the Chicago-based Project Unloaded to sponsor the “Guns Change the Story” contest.
More than 30 Philadelphia teenagers competed to create an effective social media anti-gun-violence campaign that illuminates the dangers guns introduce into any situation.
The winning team, from YEAH Philly, created three videos. Two focus on places that are fun and peaceful until a gun appears — city parks, mass transit, neighborhood streets, a cookout, a basketball game. The third examined the psychic impact of gun violence, with actual TV reports playing over a sleeping teen, who wakes in terror.
The focus of the videos resonated with Zarway Kar: “I can relate to it because, any time I want to play basketball, you see people win a game and then they get shot the next day because someone got mad that they lost.”
Kar and his team from Children’s Hospital’s Building Resilience After Violent Events program, or BRAVE, wrote a poem to narrate one of the videos:
For in the heart of darkness, the seeds of peace must grow.
Let our voices ring out clear from Cobb’s Creek to Willow Grove.
“Some folks are quite ignorant to what they think about guns and gun violence and who’s committing crimes — so, there will be some awareness, some education and hopefully some prevention,” said Norristown Police Chief Jacqueline Bailey-Davis, one of the team of judges.
Choosing a clear winner was a tough call, though, and the sponsoring nonprofit Project Unloaded says it will try to work all of the contest entries into the social media campaign it has planned on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram in hopes of discouraging their young audience from picking up a gun.