The simple act of escorting people home from a crime-ridden subway stop is a great step in the right direction. From today’s NY Daily News:
After a spate of recent muggings and robberies, a group of 20 Bedford-Stuyvesant men started escorting people home as they got off the train and are walking through the neighborhood reaching out to young men.
“We’re not the Guardian Angels, we’re not armed,” said Kareem Varlack, 35, a field technician for Verizon and a founding member of the group We Make Us Better.
“We’re about encouraging males to be involved, because you don’t see men in their 20s, 30s and 40s involved in the community anymore, so we’re trying to bridge that gap.”
Once a week – on random evenings – the men walk subway riders home from the Utica Ave. train station. They also sponsored a neighborhood outreach walk earlier this month, stopping to talk to young men hanging out on the corners.
Read the full article here. Shoutout to @MLLTPhotos for the heads-up.