The evening session we had with Willie Stokes was about the Black Sheep Redemption project. Willie told us about his life story, how we got involved in gang and went to jail. He is a former gang member who is now encouraging at-risk youth to stay out of gangs. He grew up in Salinas and growing up seeing violence and eventually trapped him into the gang life, it took him years until he decided to leave the gang life style and started helping other youth who might be in the same situation he was in.
I have to admit that my prior knowledge about gangs was not very accurate. I thought even though a person grows up in an unsafe environment, he can still choose to be out of it. Yes, it was partly correct but I was not thinking of how hard it is to get out of the environment that he grew up in. Willie’s story has shown me how easy it is to fall into the cycle of violence. It took him so many years to drop out of the gang, and it was very impressive that he is now helping people that were in the same boat as him. There are very little that I know about the organizations that help young people who involves in violence, especially gangs, but dedicating himself for creating productive members to the community is truly amazing. A short session we had with Willie was very inspirational and powerful, it has encouraged me to make the most out of my opportunity and reminded me to always give back to the society.
