Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence

Institute selected as Citizens Bank "Champion in Action"

text from Citizens Bank website:

Get involved in your community by helping those who are already making a difference.

Our Champions in Action* are shining examples of dedication and determination in community outreach. And they look to community members, like you, to come forward and lend a hand.

The Institute’s Streetworkers respond 24/7 to help teenagers and residents prevent and deal with conflict peacefully. The Institute’s Summer Jobs Program provides training and personal mentoring for inner-city teenagers during the most dangerous summer months. To date, more than 35 organizations have provided jobs and training to nearly 200 high school youth. Through the Nonviolence Training Program, The Institute has successfully trained 5,000 children in Cranston, Lincoln, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and Providence to use nonviolence practices. 

What you can do to help

• Make a donation -- Citizens Bank customers can make a tax-deductible contribution through Online Bill Payment available with Citizens Bank Online®. You can also send your contribution directly to The Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence at the address below.
• Volunteer -- Volunteers are an important part of The Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence.
• Learn more -- Tune into NBC 10 or contact the The Institute for the Study and Practice.

*Formerly Community Champions

Lifespan: supporting our Streetworkers' health and our work

from Lifespan's 2006 Annual Report (emphasis added by us):

THE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY AND PRACTICE OF NONVIOLENCE
Ending Violence, Vendettas and Vengeance

There are roughly forty people in the emergency department who are anticipating news about a gunshot victim. Most are family and friends, but some are rival gang members. The atmosphere is tense.

The medical team is working to save the teenager’s life. Social workers are doing their best to comfort the family. Security is trying to calm the agitated crowd. Then, a small group of young adults enters the building. At that moment, the crowd visibly relaxes. The streetworkers have arrived.

Providence Journal: Taking pride in the neighborhood pays off for Olneyville

Taking pride in the neighborhood pays off for Olneyville
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
By Gregory Smith
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE
When Jessica Vega was a teenager, growing up on Amherst Street in Olneyville, her mother had a strict rule.

Don't walk on Manton Avenue and don't cross over to the area south of Manton.

Vega recalled yesterday that her mother used to say, You can get kidnapped. You can get shot. There's a lot of bad people there.

But her mother's rule no longer applies, police officials and civic leaders rejoiced yesterday. They gathered at the new Riverside Park yesterday morning to celebrate the revitalization of Olneyville in the vicinity of Aleppo, Pelham, Bosworth and Curtis streets and Manton Avenue.
 

Providence Journal: City’s community policing receives more high praise

City’s community policing receives more high praise
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
By Gregory Smith
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Prof. Herman Goldstein, whom Police Chief Dean M. Esserman calls “the father of community policing,” dropped by police headquarters yesterday.

Goldstein’s internationally influential book, Problem-Oriented Policing, is mandatory study for supervisors vying for promotion in the Police Department.

His thesis is that policing is so difficult and complex that the problems the police confront must be broken down and analyzed, and a body of knowledge accumulated that can spur well-informed action.

Institute, Providence PD win MetLife Community-Police Partnership Award

Read the official announcement here.

below, coverage from Providence Business News:

PROVIDENCE – In a ceremony this morning at Riverside Park in Olneyville, the MetLife Foundation honored three city organizations for their success in reducing crime. U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Mayor David N. Cicilline and MetLife Vice President Michael Convery were among those on hand for the 10 a.m. presentation of two MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards.

• The Olneyville Housing Corporation and the Providence Police Department shared a $25,000 first-place Neighborhood Revitalization Award, for helping turn around the Olneyville neighborhood by acquiring vacant land and “nuisance” properties and replacing them with attractive, affordable housing. “These efforts have resulted in 51 new affordable homes and a 70-percent reduction in crime around targeted properties,” the MetLife Foundation said.

“There are a lot of people and organizations in Olneyville working toward building a healthy neighborhood that provides everything a family needs to be successful,” Frank Shea, executive director of Olneyville Housing, said in a statement. “Every day, the Providence Police Department is a key partner in this work. We appreciate the MetLife Foundation for recognizing and supporting our efforts.”

• The Institute for Study & Practice of Nonviolence received a $15,000 award in a “Special Strategy” Gang Prevention and Youth Safety category for its “Streetworkers” program, which trains young people to mediate gang conflicts and intervene in neighborhood crises. The streetworkers – who include former gang members – seek to teach nonviolence, by word and example, and reconnect local youths with their schools and families.

Providence Journal: Restorative justice is a tough, elusive hope in Belfast

Restorative justice is a tough, elusive hope in Belfast
Julia Steiny
Sunday, November 4, 2007

On one of the only sunny afternoons during the week I recently spent in Belfast, I accompanied the folks from Providence's Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence as they met with local youth workers from the Upper Shankill Project. We gathered at an elementary school, in a big meeting room with windows all along one wall looking out on a hillside of Irelands ubiquitous green.

The school itself could have been one of our boxy buildings, except that Belfast fire codes allow them to cover the walls with art, notices and a huge display of photographs of kids all dressed up in their finest, standing with a parent or two at a Christmas dance.