In the News....
Posted on Thurs July 6th, 2006
Barrios Unidos Takes its Message to Venezuela By Matt King of SC Sentinel
An agreement between a Santa Cruz nonprofit and a bank affiliated with the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a chance to build solidarity between the two countries, Barrios Unidos Executive Director Nane Alejandrez said Monday.
"What we're trying to do is people to people," Alejandrez said. "They're in the process of developing these programs. ... They want to know from us if they're on the right track."
Barrios Unidos, the group Alejandrez founded 30 years ago to combat youth violence and gang activity, will receive $100,000 from the Industrial Bank of Venezuela to promote a yearlong cultural exchange between the two countries.
The grant is about one-tenth of the organization's annual budget.
Delegates from each nation will visit the other to learn what each is doing to keep poverty-stricken young people out of gangs and push them toward higher education.
Barrios Unidos has done similar work in Central America and Africa, but the exchange program is a first for Venezuela.
Venezuela's Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, called the agreement "a bridge between the people with common problems" and a "seed of a much larger project."
Alejandrez credited the arrangement to Harry Belafonte, the singer and civil rights advocate who is a friend of Chavez. Belafonte recommended Barrios Unidos as a group that could help the country deal with gang and violence problems.
"When you look at Venezuela, it's very poor. Neighborhoods are made out of brick and cardboard," Alejandrez said. "When you talk about a poor neighborhood here, people talk about Beach Flats. But Beach Flats in Venezuela would be more than a middle-class neighborhood."
Contact Matt King at mking@santacruzsentinel.com.
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Harry Belefonte sings Barrios Unidos' song By Jennifer Squires of SC Sentinel
Harry Belafonte's "eternal journey" to fight for social justice brought him to a quiet educational fundraiser for Barrios Unidos Thursday evening.
Barrios Unidos is in the midst of developing a sustainability plan to ensure the community-based peace movement founded in Santa Cruz nearly 30 years ago continues to serve young people in the area and around the world, according to program founder and Executive Director Daniel "Nane" Alejandrez.
A self-described "big fan" of Alejandrez, Belafonte has supported Barrios Unidos in the past with talks, concerts and collaboration.
On Thursday, Belafonte mingled with Barrios Unidos supporters and gave a speech to the small crowd gathered to meet him at a private, rural residence in Corralitos.
"Barrios Unidos is a great instrument," Belafonte said.
The organization works to reclaim and restore the lives of struggling youth while promoting unity amongst families and neighbors through community-building efforts. Although it's headquarters and original center are located on Soquel Drive, Barrios Unidos now has 14 chapters nationwide. Representatives travel throughout the country, to Africa and South America to speak to groups and do outreach work.
Barrios Unidos is in the process of combining its nonprofit work with economic development, according to Alejandrez.
"We're just trying to build an institution for the future," he said.
Contact Jennifer Squires at jsquires@santacruzsentinel.com........................................................................................................................
Foundation recognizes tireless youth worker By Brian Seals of SC Sentinel
SANTA CRUZ — For a story about Otilio Quintero, you could ask all the typical reporter-type questions like why does he do the kind of work he does or what does he like about his job.
But just following the guy known as "O.T." around the grounds of Barrios Unidos on the city’s Eastside will offer a glimpse of his enthusiasm and work.
"The original focus was to help our kids be safe here in Santa Cruz," Quintero said on a recent morning, standing near a mural depicting Beach Flats in the late 1970s, painted on the back wall of the group’s office."We wound up creating a movement."
For the work he does with Barrios Unidos, the press-shy Quintero has been honored with the 2005 California Peace Prize from the California Wellness Foundation. The honor is one of three bestowed in the state and carries a $25,000 prize.
"I’ve never won anything," he told a group of students Thursday. "If I have a scratch-off game, I scratch the wrong side."
Walking around the Barrios Unidos property on Soquel Avenue, Quintero is quick to talk about the plethora of activity at the site.
Barrios Unidos is dedicated to helping youth overcome poverty and the social ills that can come along with it.It does that by offering community outreach, youth development and economic development.
That means things like the Cesar Chavez School for Social Change at the site, a computer lab, neighborhood education and recreation efforts and operating a silk-screen shop with clientele ranging from U.S. Rep. Sam Farr to the Beastie Boys.
That operation grew from graffiti, something Quintero said he and others saw as art.
"We said let’s take that art, put it on a T shirt and make some money," he said.
Activities aside, Quintero said working with youth today begins with spirituality. He said when kids are dealing with poverty, violence and even death, the first point is to enliven their spirit and culture.
"That’s what the essence of the peace movement is about — trying to feed that spirit," he said.
Normally, Quintero is happy to be a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. He’s quick to introduce co-workers and laud them for their work.
However, his efforts make the organization successful, said executive director Daniel "Nane" Alejandrez.
"We’re honored our bro is being honored himself," Alejandrez said. "Without O.T., Barrios Unidos wouldn’t be where it’s at."
While Quintero is accepting his award Wednesday in San Francisco, Alejandrez will be in Washington, D.C., to pick up an award to Barrios Unidos from the Institute of Policy Studies.
In honoring Quintero, the California Wellness Foundation cited Quinteros’ work in lobbying for creation of the state’s Gang, Crime and Violence Prevention Program in 1996, which has resulted in $10 million being directed to grassroots anti-violence and helping to establish Barrios Unidos chapters in other areas.
Quintero’s quest to help the impoverished began as he was growing up in a rural farm housing project west of Fresno.
As a teen, there was little to do in the area except alcohol, drugs and two kinds of speed — narcotic and driving. After watching many friends die and attending so many funerals, he realized he needed a change. His father moved the family to Mendota in 1975.
"I was one of the few that got out alive. It is a duty I have to those who didn’t make it," he said of his work.
He has worked at Barrios Unidos since the formerly all-volunteer organization incorporated in 1993.
Quintero earned a bachelor of arts degree from UC Santa Cruz and a master’s degree from San Jose State.For Official Online article click here
Contact Brian Seals at bseals@santacruzsentinel.com.
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Fresh approach for troubled kids By Karen ofMercury News
Beginning next year, Santa Clara County will steer hundreds of young criminal offenders away from the standard trip to juvenile hall and into the adolescent equivalent of a ``timeout.''
Instead of detention, some teens in trouble may enter a 30-day program that teaches accountability, empathy and better decision-making.
The condensed dose of life lessons, from overcoming addiction to staying cool in conflicts, is a significant departure from the lock-'em-up trends of the past two decades.
The county will join a growing number of regions in the Bay Area and across the country that now reject incarcerating kids for minor offenses such as drug use and petty theft. Convinced that juvenile halls increase delinquency, counties such as San Francisco and Santa Cruz already have turned to so-called ``evening reporting centers,'' short-term, intensive treatment alternatives that fill the late afternoon and evening when youth crime typically peaks.
Well-supported programs
So far, the Bay Area numbers served are small, but the programs are supported by prosecutors, police and probation officers responsible for keeping the public safe.
Amelia, 17, is among the reasons why. She went to the San Francisco center after spending a month in juvenile hall for running away and using drugs while on probation.
``In the beginning I was like, man, forget that. Five days a week and all those hours,'' she said. But she quickly made friends, learned to communicate better, improved her grades and enjoyed ``losing all those distractions.''
``It kept me on track,'' Amelia said.
Across the country, young people like Amelia are routinely sent to juvenile halls for relatively minor misbehavior, such as violating probation by missing curfew or cutting class. Inside, low-level offenders often take crash courses from their more hardened peers.
According to the non-profit Annie E. Casey Foundation, which is helping establish detention alternatives nationwide, time served in lock-up is a stronger predictor for future criminality than gang affiliation, possession of a weapon or dysfunctional family background.
Evening reporting centers opened two months ago in Watsonville and 15 months ago in San Francisco. Santa Clara County officials expect to open a center in East San Jose in January.
Ventura County and Washington, Illinois, New Mexico, Delaware and Maryland also operate or plan to open similar centers.
Ten years after Cook County, Ill., opened the nation's first reporting center of this type, as many as 98 percent of the participants reach their first court date crime-free.
Incarceration down
Mike Rohan, Cook County's director of juvenile probation, said the center is the central reason for a 45 percent reduction in the number of young people sent to Illinois state correctional facilities in the past decade.
Intensive, short-term programs are also cost-effective, supporters say. Santa Clara County's center will serve 200 juveniles a year at a cost of $62 a day each, compared with $230 in the juvenile hall.
At the 2-month-old Luna Evening Center in Watsonville, up to 10 youths meet in a storefront fixed up like a family living room. They get rides to and from the center, so there is no excuse for not showing up.
Words of wisdom
There are meditation circles, yoga classes and community gardening excursions. Teens at the Luna Center join counselors for home-style meals, sharing what they are thankful for and practicing table manners. But they also learn about what lies ahead if they fail to change their behavior. Former gang members and experts in ``three strikes'' laws are among those leading daily sessions.
Judy Mitchell's 17-year-old son spent May in the Luna Center on a graffiti charge. Diagnosed with a range of mental disorders, the teen has been in and out of juvenile hall 10 times since age 14.
But this time, he learned something other than how to commit his next crime, she said.
``It wasn't until he got into juvenile hall the first time that he learned about drugs, gangs and violence,'' Mitchell said. ``It made him the boy he is today.''
San Francisco runs centers for groups of five boys and five girls. In its first six months, almost 90 percent of participants made their court dates with no new charges.
Santa Clara County justice officials and community leaders have met for the past three years to reduce the numbers of incarcerated youths. The county is one of 50 receiving consultants and financial support from the Casey Foundation, with the evening reporting center as a central goal.
Planning involved ``heavy, painful, really heated discussions,'' said public defender and center designer Sylvia Perez. ``In our county there is still a culture that punitive sanctions are effective, when research around the country states the opposite.''
Almost one quarter of the 878 juveniles brought into custody in the first three months of this year were probation violators, the overwhelming majority African-American or Latino.
Santa Clara County's evening reporting center will mark a historic shift away from the punitive approach, Perez said.
The center will serve 24 youths at a time, ages 14 to 17. Eligible teens will have violated probation, failed an electronic home monitoring program, or been arrested for a new, minor crime.
Life skills taught
Between 3 and 9 p.m., participants will attend life skills classes and get help looking for jobs, with the primary goal of changing negative behavior. Youths will discuss poor decisions they've made, using role-playing to discover better options. They'll see worlds outside their gang-infested neighborhoods, joining hikes and trips to art museums.
Perez said the center is an important first step.
``We need to stop locking up kids if we really want to rehabilitate them,'' she said. ``We can't achieve community safety if we don't change the way these kids think, and help them.''
Contact Karen de Sá at (650) 688-7587 or kdesa@mercurynews.com .
