hello and welcome to be poets my name is sally baker and i'm the host of we poets we poets is a poetry show for boys and girls between the ages of six and thirteen we also train middle school and high school students between the ages of thirteen in one nine how to be our television technicians and produce our weekly programs we're doing a special series we did one series last week and this week we're doing part two of gun violence in the schools and in the community and in the homes i'm going to be interviewing three handsome young men tonight who are going to be talking about this topic and i'm also going to be interviewing this a lovely young lady here on my right and her name is destiny stewart she works at the berkeley youth alternatives and she's going to tell us all about her job and some of the tragic things that have happened in her family due to gun violence so here we go with destiny hi destiny hi how are you tonight i'm great i'm so glad you could come and bring these three young men i'm going we do so much we offer training in job readiness and pretty much just get used ready for the world world and it's a great experience on business cards but also work with you this well great great and how long have you worked there i've been there for three years great great now we're going to be talking about gun violence could you tell us how this tragedy has affected you and your family please ok well actually done violence has put a huge factor in my life i lost my mother to gun violence and every since been i've pretty much been trying to break through my poetry about gun violence and ways that we can try to stop it and them positive messages to  great and what are what are your points about my poems are about things that are going on the community specifically gun violence because every day it's an ongoing thing it's also positive words and positive messages to are used to think before we react you know and in spite of what goes on around us we can still achieve that's right and tell us about when you first started writing point and you said you wanted a word of software start a writing poetry probably and where did you go to win this award well i went to l a hours able to perform in front of a group of young men and women about dreams and l a and it was an in this book the spoken word workshop and they talk they write and it's became an outlet for them as well it's definitely great to see the use express themselves about their community and gun violence in a way that they can make a change if this the eiffel for me that i'm able to do that and what word would you put out to our watching audience young people and adults about gun violence protecting themselves and feeling safe you know just put the guns down you know let's think let's get our youth before becomes worse you know it's so many things going on you know  we express ourselves other rather than anger great great well i know you have another appointment but i want to thank you so much for bringing these nice young man that i'm going to interview and good luck in the future and we hope that we can eradicate gun violence thank you  i would not like to introduce you to this handsome young man his name is darion schaefer and he's going to tell us about how he lost a dear family member to gun violence recently i'm good i'm so sorry to hear that inside a community and community i see which makes it even more harder on everybody in a community because that community don't take a lot of losses but every loss that we do take is hard on us because we don't take a lot of losses so it's like in the community that i live in is a real village so it's like everybody started coming together because it takes a village to raise a kid what are some of the things that the adults and the youth groups are doing to help young people in your community and it's a lot of positive things going on in this community centers all type of the activities for the kids like just try to keep a mind focused and busy on some good so they try to take a different running life as is the same thing around is every just like to venture off and she's fun where some of the places you go to have fun really all over the bay area like china leader bay or doesn't my biggest thing right now is trying to get out because i'm just tired of seeing everything that  doing that's right what state do you think you'd like to move to the west i don't want to go to any state is better than estate at this moment when i come back i just want to see some different good well i know you're going to be a good role model for the young people who got it because never look back and i never look the same i never had a same outlook on life but at the same never day i never did well in a negative instead i thought about a life ari what would he do if he was still alive and i took it from there person that has a medical past you just terrorize the world and you have another person take that same weapon and break it down our children be like art this is what you do weapons but at the same you don't you don't take them out of the community hard nobody it's only for self protection it's people like that that's what we really is not when you hear good you mostly think of all the negative like to balance killings murders robberies except for that the saints do we really take the time do we actually most people actually take that song and sit down with our kids be like our business how weapon worse and also use what you should or should not do and what what are the correct times to actually take to take it out into the community and actually teach what most of i like to read i like to listen to music i found a studio yes i only got a few i got to put in but i'm not really any interest i'm not trying to be no wrap around trying to be successful good good what career do you think you want to pursue law law good good that's a good good you think you'd like to stay here stay here in california or go out of state i mean it's too much in the world not to go out and venture off as a part of becoming second amendment right but at the same time should stop and think instead of worrying about what guys to take and what guys pick out is nonsense that's going to stop and think is business to be may as might be may innocent life to live life is too short to be worried about too much drama thing to some better aspire to do some they are your future you know they get a present right now right now you by be in a bad position but then i can always change in a matter of moments it's all about what you think and what you do what they think you so much you have a lot of good insight here to get there are young people and thank you for coming in helping us out tonight it was a pleasure being here i appreciate you can thank you so much i would not like to interview another handsome young man here and ma'am none of my family but i have friends that never made it to eighteen that was very talented and what they did stuff like that and it's a shame that good time was wasted what do you think we can do as a community to help these young people in the community centers are being role models for them well it's up to them to be truly i was i we can we can build a boys and girls club we can we can put we could make another library we can do where we have to do waste a lot of money but it's up to them if they want to  is not easy is not really that hard to get guns off the streets or whatever like is now hard to like get a gun license these day join the how to transfer money or whatever you can do is trade for whatever drugs or whatever to be like guns is now hard to get these days a and now we have our last point for the night a handsome young man he's written us a nice point about gun violence but first of all we're going to hear from him hello young man good afternoon how are you ms baker good come to that there at the camera and tell us your name and alow what you are and turn it is love to me it's home and it just feels good is actually say you've seen are we teach music production in spoken word exit or good and you like to write poetry right yes man yes first of all let's talk violence has your family been affected by gun violence one member of my family has yes ma'am he actually got shot by the police vallejo california police so if he's deceased and how it was  he was actually eighteen years old it was sad it made me feel sad made me feel like what do i need to do as a young man to say something to fix this problem because that is a i shoot videos myself in edit them i dance except i do a whole bunch of stuff is numbers go i could go on and on and on and on who are good and i think so many young people get into trouble because they don't have an outlet yes ma'am i believe so mance i think really one of the main things i think that is a problem is the media and what the media portrays to the to the youth basically  brother or is he my enemy great that was nice and short yes or no what else do you like to write about the side gun violence i like to write about how how to how to live your life how to live the best life you can possibly live how to be a young man how to survive in america not only in america but wherever you are in school in cali it's outside of the workplace everywhere i believe that if you put your mind to it and you stay focused and you don't let things distract you that you can do all the things that are possible things are possible you just have to be focused you have to be determined and you've got to respect yourself you have to love yourself that's what i believe that respect other people yes ma'am yeah always have you done a traveling outside of california yes ma'am i have gone i've been to atlanta and to new york i've been to philadelphia i can't even name all the places being right now but i've been a couple places do you think there's as much violence in the city says here in oakland bay area yes ma'am i do yes such as new york and l a of course you've got gangs and it's in life that you can do enjoy your youth enjoy being young all the things you can do play basketball shoot hoops play football do something productive basically so  it so your career with your music would you want to tell us where you want to go with that yes ma'am i just like to speak a message out i just want to let the youth know basically and of course young black man to also that again ought things are possible you don't have to bang colors you don't have to shoot dice on the corner you don't have to smoke marijuana you don't have to drink and am i think is because like adults actually give you drinks and buy them drinks because they beg and stuff you know except or that's not right it's never been right where where's that britain at where can we find out you don't see that anywhere why would you do that so that's my thing with my music i just speak