Questions and Answers

2006 California Peace Prize Honorees

Sahra Abdi

Q: How is your community affected by violence?

A: Back in Somalia, fighting was OK. Kids used their hands and got louder to express their feelings. Here in America, the kids are getting arrested and going to juvenile hall because they're using their hands. No one is telling them, "You can't use your hands here. What you need to do is express yourself in another way." So many of the kids are not in school, because if you're in school and you do something bad three times, you get kicked out and are labeled as a troublemaker. So, although they don't want to be violent and they want to live in America as good citizens, no one is teaching them how to manage their anger or what to do with it. If we can get the resources necessary to work with kids and their parents to positively adapt to a new environment and to educate social-service providers, schools and the others about cultural differences, we can create a healthy environment.

Q: Describe some of the programs that help young people manage anger.

A: We have parenting classes where we talk to parents about disciplining children in America, how to manage stress, how to talk to your children about school and how to know more about what your kids are doing. With young people, we facilitate groups to educate them on how to get along with their parents and live in two cultures. Some of the girls were born here, but their parents are still thinking and behaving as if they were in Somalia, which creates intergenerational and cultural issues. For instance, some of the girls are saying, "My mom doesn’t say, 'I love you.' She doesn't love me." So we have to go back and say, "Your mom is trying to show you how much she loves you by doing things for you. She thinks that you already know that she loves you." We try to facilitate groups where young people come and learn from each other.

Q: How can we improve outreach to particular communities in need?

A: Each community has different needs. Problems arise when available services are inaccessible or culturally inappropriate for Somali families. Additionally, there are many services that are available and may be culturally appropriate, but the community is not aware of their existence. It is important to have different ethnic groups participate in the planning and implementation of new policies and programs. As advocates of positive change, we should always engage the community in solving problems concerning them. Sometimes all it takes is to simply ask, “What’s important to you? What do you need? What's going on?”

Margaret Diaz

Q: How and why did you first become involved in domestic violence prevention?

A: I'm a survivor of domestic violence. I lived with a batterer for 16 years. I fled from Oklahoma in October 1984. When I got to California, I stayed with my sister-in-law and my brother-in-law and worked two jobs. Then I thought, no woman should have to flee her home. I had never really been out of Oklahoma other than for visits, and when I landed here, it was just a whole new world. I said to myself, if I can help anyone else and stop her from having to leave her home, then I will. I wanted to set in motion a process to try to do something about domestic violence.

Q: Have you seen changes in attitudes since you started?

A: Yes. As a matter of fact, when Nicole Simpson was murdered in 1994, domestic violence prevention became a hot topic, and everyone wanted to get on the bandwagon. But then, over the years, we have seen it kind of go back into the closet. In the 1980s, domestic violence was an issue you rarely wanted to talk about. The mindset was, “I wonder what she did to get the hell beat out of her.” Or else, “Why does she stay with him? It's probably drugs or alcohol.” Well, we are kind of on that trend again and it is not right. You cannot hit your wife or your child. We need to get out there and educate people.

Q: How do you work with youth?

A: We know that a lot of the boys are already beating up their girlfriends. [The schools] call us in and we do presentations. I was really shocked when this little girl, about 15 years old, spoke up and said, “My boyfriend bought me a pager.” And I said, “Why?” She said, “Well he wants me to call him when I get out of school, when I do this, or when I do that.” And I said, “Don't you realize this is a form of control?” The young girls don't realize that. They just feel that he “loves” them. We go into schools and talk to the youth, even the [young] boys, and let them know that this is not a way to treat a girl. They would not want their mother or sisters treated this way.

Q: Do you believe violence is preventable?

A: I believe that violence is preventable, and education is the key. If we can reach them in elementary school, we can decrease it a lot. If we can reach the smaller children and teach them about alternatives to violence, I believe that we can [make a difference]. Maybe we cannot eliminate violence altogether, but I do believe that we can take a big bite out of it. If all little Jimmy sees is violence at home, when he gets to school he’ll turn his violence toward whoever is close, because that's all he knows. I would suggest more education for victims of domestic violence. If we fail to curb it, the cycle will continue.

Anthony Thigpenn

Q: What are some of the reasons your programs succeed?

A: The first thing I think about are the great people in the communities in which we work: our grassroots leaders. We have some leaders who are now 13 years old and some who have been with us from the beginning. People have their own lives, their own families and their own problems, but they become involved to try to better their community, their city and, hopefully, the world. Their dedication and commitment is probably one of our greatest inspirations and assets. I think another key to our success is that we have always seen our work as an experiment. We know where we want to go, but not necessarily how to get there. And so, keeping the spirit of experimentation—not becoming too dogmatic about any one particular methodology and being open to learning—is important.

Q: How do your programs prevent violence?

A: When you think about young people who are involved in gangs or other kinds of antisocial activity, if they had a job, if they had a career path, if they a chance to go to college, there is no question that they would have taken a different path. In fact, the original founding of Agenda—SCOPE’s first component—was after the 1992 riot in Los Angeles. I was struck by the lack of ways for people in poor communities to both understand and have a voice in changing public policies. Creating avenues for people to express their frustrations in positive ways and creating opportunities for people to go to college and have a good job and career path are absolutely fundamental to preventing violence.

Q: Tell us a little about how you approach preventing violence in your community.

A: One thing we understood from the beginning is that we wanted to ground our work in the local community. So our grassroots leaders and board of directors are all people who live in South Los Angeles and other communities that suffer from the problems we are trying to change. We also understand that working in any one community is not enough, so we have worked to build alliances among different communities, ethnic groups and social constituencies. We spend a lot of time building relationships with institutional leaders, labor and progressive elected officials, and with community organizations like the Community Coalition, the Alameda Jobs Coalition, and the Chinatown Service Center. We think collaboration is really the way that we are going to figure out the path to solving problems of violence, health and poverty in our community. And finally, we ask people in the community what issues are most important to them. Once we have brainstormed with our grassroots leaders and looked at the political landscape, we create proactive solutions that we take back out again to the community, to find out what makes sense to people and what kinds of things people will become involved in.