Eight Chicagoans and one suburbanite lost their lives to gun violence this weekend -- depressing news on a holiday weekend. But for some inspiring reading on the topic of violence prevention, check out Don Terry's moving profile in the Chicago Tribune Magazine of Diane Latiker.
Miss Diane, as she's called, has turned her house on the border of Chicago's Roseland and West Pullman neighborhoods into an after-school community center called Kids Off the Block for at-risk youth or beyond risk teenagers:
Five years ago, Miss Diane, a former construction worker and hairdresser, decided to do whatever she could to help keep Roseland's teenagers alive.
What she did was remarkable. She opened her heart and her front door to other people's children whether they were on the honor roll or hardcore gang members who had dropped out of school. It is the latter that she is particularly committed to reaching. Explaining this focus, she says: "No one is interested in working with the shooters, the so-called bad kids. Their minds are wired for the streets. We're talking about kids who don't even trust the ground they walk on."
She turned the living and dining rooms of her modest home on the first floor of the family two-flat into KOB. She, her husband and their 17-year-old daughter, Aisha, live in the back of the house. The KOB members and Miss Diane's family share the bathroom.
Six days a week, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. during the school year and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the summer, Miss Diane stuffs as many as 75 kids into her house at once -- a feat considering her living room only measures 12 feet by 10 feet. About 200 teenagers are signed up for tutoring, basketball, and for field trips whenever Miss Diane can find the money.
Since she started the program in 2003, funding has become easier to obtain: KOB receives support through Gov. Blagojevich's Safety Net Works program, created after the Chicago-based anti-violence program CeaseFire lost its state funding. KOB belongs to one of 17 Safety Net Works coalitions located throughout the state.
Read the whole piece to find out more about Latiker's important contributions.
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