by Natasha Khairullah
Staff Writer
City Council member Mia Jones and members of Working to Improve (WIN) Neighborhoods have really got the ball rolling to help the city’s at-risk youth.
In an effort to curb last year’s high crime rate among the city’s youth, the two joined last summer to create the WIN Night Basketball League with the hopes of providing an alternative to late night activity that could potentially lead to intentional or unintentional criminal activity.
With this year’s summer break right around the corner, the league is holding open registration in hopes of having another successful year and reaching even more of Jacksonville’s young men.
According to Jones, the nighttime program was launched last year by her and WIN in response to all of the crimes that were taking place throughout the community and reflected in its crime and murder rate. The goal of the league was twofold: to provide a positive option for summer evening entertainment as well as mentoring from positive role models.
“Studies show that most crimes take place between three in the afternoon and 10 at night,” she said. “So this was a way to get them indoors doing something they like to do.”
The league will operate during the summer break from June 4-July 27 in the Northside Church gymnasium. There, young men between the ages of 12 and 25 will meet in age appropriate groups, every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings from 7-11 p.m. (Friday night games are allowed to continue till “whenever” and transportation home will be provided to those who don’t have any) for recreation and workshops. The workshops provide instruction and counseling about the value of self-control, self-discipline and accepting responsibility for one’s actions.
Jones added that because many of the crimes committed by youth – especially young men – are “respect crimes,” ones that are committed when weapons are used to solve problems that arise from one’s feeling “disrespected” — the conflict resolution and anger management workshops have been useful.
“It’s about much more than basketball,” she said. “This program is a tool to create positive social change that leads Jacksonville’s at-risk youth and young adults toward responsible citizenship.”
A staff of about 40 local men will help facilitate the league’s effort as well as serve as mentors.
The league started last year with roughly 200 participants and according to organizer Philip Mobley, it was a great success.
Mobley said he and other members of WIN saw the success of similar programs in bigger cities like Chicago and Atlanta and thought that Jacksonville could benefit from one here.
“That’s when we approached Mia,” said Mobley. “This was something that was on her agenda and something that she was planning on launching right around the same time. So it was a perfect marriage.”
To kickoff the 2007 season, Jones, along with other WIN members, attended a registration drive Tuesday. Though the total number of participants for this year’s league cannot be determined until registration closes, Jones said a considerable amount of last year’s participants signed up again. Jones said their initiative and interest alone is a huge success.
“The success to me is really determined not by a decreased crime rate or double the amount of participants that come out but by the interest they show and by the fact that they felt like the experiences they took from participating in last year’s league was enough to bring them back again,” said Jones. “To me, that’s a success.”