Expanded Anti-Violence Initiative (EAVI)

Rebecca Harris

After preparing for many months, we were excited to finally have our whole SSP team together!  We spent our first week together exploring Woodlawn and some of the assets it has to offer, including the UCW Charter School, several churches, a YMCA, and the local fire department.  Every place we went, I was impressed and humbled by the extent to which all of these institutions welcomed us into their community. 

During our explorations, it also became clear that gang violence and safety issues were high on the list of our high school students’ concerns, so on Tuesday afternoon, we decided to attend one of the monthly Expanded Anti-Violence Initiative (EAVI) meetings put on by the Chicago Police Department’s 3^rd district.  EAVI was created with the goal of preventing crime in Chicago neighborhoods by providing a place in which police and community members can collaborate.  The meeting was led by two officers, and the room was filled with different members of the community.  The discussion mostly focused on businesses that were “problem areas,” or places where a lot of violence and narcotics issues occur.  While the police were aware of all of these problem areas, it was really the community members, especially elderly women, who provided updates on the situations at each of these locations. 


As the meeting progressed, it became very apparent that the community members were crucial to the success of the program.  One of the officers explained the importance of community participation: people often behave much differently when police are around, so the police must rely on people living in the area to be their eyes.  People living near or in problem areas have unique insights into the areas, and the sharing of information is critical in helping the police understand the depth of violence and narcotics issues.  Community reports were followed by break-out sessions that worked to develop “action plans” to deal with the given issues.  These action plans ranged from starting petitions to locating landlords of buildings that were considered problem areas in order to alert them of the goings-on in their buildings. 

More than anything, it was inspiring to see the passion with which the women at the meeting spoke about the issues in their neighborhoods and the commitment they feel toward their home neighborhoods.  It was motivating to see so many people who are so active in their communities and who are so exceptionally invested in making their neighborhoods better and safer places to live, and I am excited that in SSP we are set out to do the same!