Local teens listen intently to keynote speaker Sean Garedo during the second annual Peace Rally recognizing National Youth Nonviolence Week. Teens are, from left, Reena Mistry, Paris Fisher, Cynthia Nunez, Ramy Pena and Wendy Moura.  Times photo/Butch Adams 

By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — Non-violence begins at home. That was the message that experts on the subject from different career spectrums tried to get across to local youths at a peace rally Friday afternoon at the Blackstone Valley Visitor Center.

It was the second annual peace rally held locally in recognition of National Youth Nonviolence Week. It was also the final event of Peace Week, which was developed by a student-led group called the Pawtucket Leadership and Mentoring program (PLMP).
The rally’s keynote speaker was Sean Garedo, a former Pawtucket resident, who is a national motivational speaker on the topic of gang involvement and personal transformation.
U.S. Attorney Robert Corrente was also a featured guest, speaking to the gathering about a multi-media program on drug and gang-related violence, called “Street Smarts,” that is being offered through his office.
The rally featured entertainment by a “positive hip hop troupe” called Project Peace. Also on display was a youth-authored “Peace Pledge” promoting a life of non-violence, which has been signed to date by over 200 students from Shea, Tolman and the Blackstone Academy Charter School.
Corrente told the students that while Pawtucket “is not New York City or South Central L.A., the issues of violence are just as bad here as anywhere else.” He said, however, that addressing violence shouldn’t be looked at as a global issue, but rather that “you have to fix the problems of violence in your own house, your own school, your own group of friends.”
Corrente said that Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Rose travels to various schools with his presentation, “Street Smarts,” that portrays the gritty lives and squalid living situations of drug dealers and gang leaders in the Providence area.
He expressed hope that “Street Smarts” would be shown in the city’s high schools, to highlight for students the decidedly unglamorous side of this lifestyle.   
Garedo, who now works for the Pawtucket Substance Abuse Prevention Task Force, spoke candidly and emotionally about his own youthful experiences with drugs, gangs and violence. He implored the students to choose positive friends and role models and to engage in a non-violent lifestyle.
Reading a lengthy “roll call” of names that turned out to be the local victims of violent crimes, Garedo said, “We know we’ve got a problem, but what’s the solution? It begins at home and it ends at home,” he stated.
He urged the teens to learn from others’ mistakes, saying that in his view, “HOPE” is an acronym for “Hearing Other People’s Experiences.”
Peace Week was created by the students involved in PLMP out of concern for increases in incidents of local youth violence, according to Kate Hawley, program manager of Pawtucket Weed & Seed, which funds the PLMP.
Hawley said the PLMP is a “positive youth development program for high school students” that was started by Pawtucket Weed & Seed, City Year and students from Shea and Tolman high schools and the Blackstone Academy Charter School.
Hawley said that, ultimately, PLMP builds skills necessary for members to serve as the voice of youth in Pawtucket. The teen members mentor and tutor neighborhood children and provide outreach for their peers. They also hold voting positions on the Weed & Seed steering committee, where they serve as advocates for youth, she added.
In addition, PLMP members complete a minimum of 50 hours of community service each year, Hawley said.
Cynthia Nunez, a former Shea student who now attends Johnson & Wales, has been in the PLMP program since its inception in 2006. She said that the group’s main focus is peer outreach, which they do through various projects and activities.
The group hosts teen “coffeehouses” at the Woodlawn Community Center and is involved with Project Peace, a music and arts program at Jenks Junior High.
Nunez said several PLMP members are also involved in a mentoring and tutoring program with students at the Baldwin Elementary School.
Kat Johnson, a PLMP facilitator, said the Peace Rally capped off a week of activities in the city’s high schools that included a “Pledge Day” when students signed a pledge to lead a non-violent life, an “Education Day,”a “Day of Silence” to honor victims of violence, and a “Peace in Action” day of student assembly programs addressing crime and gang-related issues.