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October 19, 2022                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

COMMUNITY VIOLENCE INTERVENTION COLLABORATIVE SEES SUCCESS IN DOJ GRANTS

 

Cities and community violence intervention organizations participating in CVIC’s training and technical assistance program won significant grant money, showing the success of the program in building grassroots CVI infrastructure nationwide.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs just awarded $100 million to reduce violence in communities throughout the country, and many cities and organizations participating in the Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC) Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) program saw the fruits of their labor.

 

The following cities and organizations, which participated in CVIC’s TTA program, received
funding from the OJP grants:

• The Circle of Brotherhood in Miami received $2 million

• The City of Baton Rouge received $2 million

• Newark Community Street Team received $2 million

• Wambli Ska and Journey in Rapid City received $2 million

• The City of Los Angeles received $2 million

• The Alliance of Concerned Men received $2 million

Spearheaded by Hyphen, the CVIC initiative leverages philanthropic funding to deploy experts and provide training and technical assistance to over 50 grassroots CVI organizations throughout 17 jurisdictions nationwide. The TTA programs have served to identify best practices, integrate proven and innovative public-health approaches, and help local community-based organizations scale intervention efforts. The successful acquisition of these OJP grants proves not only the success of the program, but further, that this philanthropic-public model to ensure federal funding makes an impact in communities of color is one worth replicating across federal initiatives.

 

“We are thrilled to see CVIC participants earning these competitive OJP grants, and we’re proud that our TTA program is accomplishing what we set out to do in helping grassroots CVI organizations build their capacity,” said Archana Sahgal, Founder and President of Hyphen. “We know that in order to achieve true public safety in communities across the country, we need the expertise and relationships of the community-based organizations to lead the way. Our goal since the beginning has been to empower grassroots CVI groups to achieve grants just like this, as the funding will help to further facilitate their growth. We are so grateful to see it coming to fruition.”

 

Aqeela Sherrills, CVIC Advisor, said: “When it comes to addressing gun violence, we need to recruit, train, support, and compensate residents who understand their community and are committed to the day-to-day work of anticipating and meeting its needs. These grants allow these incredible organizations to do just that. Through CVI, we can put the “public” back in public safety and work to cultivate genuine wellbeing in our communities nationwide.”

 

“I want to thank the U.S. Department of Justice for their commitment to reducing gun crimes and other serious acts of violence across the nation by investing in community violence intervention programs,” said City of Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka. “With this $2 million funding our Newark Community Street Team (NCST) will be able to build upon its programs in major areas: expanding its High Risk Interventionist program to prevent and reduce violence in additional communities. This program provides violence interruption and intervention efforts by engaging with both victims and perpetrators, preventing retaliatory actions, and connecting residents with critical resources. The expanded program will enable NCST to hire eight additional staff members and host Public Safety Roundtables. This will allow us to continue our holistic approach to reducing violence, healing and supporting our community, and transforming
Newark to a safer city.”

 

“Over the past five years, the City, Rapid City Police Department and the Rapid City Fire Department have been committed to reducing crime, de-escalating violence and improving the quality of life in our community,” said Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender. “Last year, we embarked on a community-driven response model to crisis and violence prevention that has shown promising results as demonstrated by Journey-On’s response numbers and success stories, and in the dedicated work of Wambli Ska and the Red Ribbon Skirt Society. We have seen great progress in the City’s investment in these types of community-driven initiatives, especially with Journey-On. This grant will enable us to build upon that progress and to move forward with initiatives to address some very important issues and people in crisis in our community.”

 

“Baton Rouge is a proud recipient of the Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative Grant through the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs,” said Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome. “This grant will help expand our community-based public safety initiative Safe, Hopeful, Healthy BR by providing more resources to deploy interventionists into neighborhoods experiencing violence. I am grateful our federal partners have a shared vision of investing in a variety of community-based safety strategies to compliment law enforcement.”

 

“This news out of the DOJ is a testament to the work we at the Collective have proudly facilitated in Baton Rouge, Los Angeles, Miami, and Rapid City,” said E. Ruebman, Co-founder and Managing Director of the Community-Based Public Safety Collective. “Knowing that each of these municipalities and their grassroots CVI organizations will benefit from our infrastructure building work together, we are pleased that the OJP grants will allow them to continue building their capacity for CVI in serving their communities and building true public safety from the grassroots.”

 

“The HAVI is proud of the Newark Community Street Team’s success securing an OJP grant,” said Fatimah Loren Dreier, Executive Director of the HAVI. “CVIC's goal is to support community-based organizations like NCST grow and scale their work helps cities foster greater safety. It is clear that NCST's new federal funding will bring significant impact to the City of Newark.”

 

“Our team at the Human and Healing Justice Violence Intervention are actively involved to give support to community driven strategies for healing. We should continue to give special attention to healing centered approaches that address trauma and mental health support in our communities. Those closest in proximity to the violence in a community are best equipped with the skills, tools, and knowledge to train and professionalize their background for CVI-related work,” said K. Bain, Executive Director of Community Capacity Development (CCD).

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