CHICAGO — Six dedicated individuals are being celebrated for their efforts to foster safer and more harmonious communities, thanks to an initiative called Peace Portraits.
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This commendable program is a venture by the Illinois Peace Project.
This year’s recipients include a woman dedicated to keeping children away from street life, another who uses artistic expression to highlight the plight of missing women, and a man committed to reducing gun violence in the city.
Camille Travis, who serves as the Communications Manager at Metropolitan Peace Initiatives, is the creative mind behind Peace Portraits.
“Peace Portraits is a visual series we produce for the Illinois Peace Project,” explained Travis. “We shine a light on individuals making significant contributions to community safety and peace. This year, we honor six individuals, and through Peace Portraits, we share their stories via a comprehensive editorial package, including a video presentation highlighting their work and journeys, alongside written features and portraits.”
This marks the second consecutive year that Peace Portraits has been recognizing such impactful contributions.
Travis says it began because they wanted to bring more awareness to the Illinois Peace Project and also community violence intervention.
“I think the best way to tell those stories is to let the people who do the work tell how they do it and show the work directly,” Travis said. “We wanted to show kind of like a different narrative. I know we hear a lot about the gun violence in Chicago and all that’s going on. But we wanted to tell the other side of that and show the people that are actually doing the work to bring peace to the neighborhoods.”
Tavares Harrington is the outreach supervisor at the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago. He is one of the honorees.
He currently works in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood.
“We try and focus on the highest at risk that are possibly going to be involved with violence or a perpetrator of violence. We try to offer them services through either programming, workforce development, CVI as well as GED education,” Harrington said.
Harrington says efforts are working and that people are getting a second chance.
In 2012, his 7-year-old niece was killed when she got caught in the crossfire between two groups. That’s what motivates him to do this work.
“I just wanted to just get out here and help these young individuals. Help my neighborhood, help my community,” he said.
For more information on the Peace Portraits Honorees:
metropolitanpeaceinitiatives.org.
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