{"id":133579,"date":"2026-03-09T15:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T15:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/133579\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T15:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T15:55:09","slug":"philadelphia-students-take-the-mic-to-talk-gun-violences-causes-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/133579\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia students take the mic to talk gun violence\u2019s causes, solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter<\/a> to keep up with news on the city\u2019s public school system.<\/p>\n

In the hectic two minutes before the cameras started rolling, a producer told high schoolers Jayden Alston and David Torres to keep their sweatshirt hoods away from their eyes. <\/p>\n

Next, she reminded Cyniah Goodwin to sit straight and hold the mic up to her mouth. Then, they were ready. <\/p>\n

The trio of teen hosts recorded their first-ever episode of the Peacemakers Podcast last month. During a recording session last month, they dug into how Philadelphia students process anger, depression, insecurity, and other challenges that they feel contribute to gun violence across the city. They released a condensed version of that conversation<\/a> on YouTube this week.<\/p>\n

There were 450 to 500 fatal shootings in Philadelphia each year between 2020 and 2022, according to city data<\/a>. The numbers have dropped significantly since then, with 206 fatal shootings last year, but thousands of kids are still grappling with firsthand loss<\/a> or the ongoing risk of gun violence in their communities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Goodwin, Torres, and Alston attend Vaux Big Picture High School<\/a> in North Philadelphia. They\u2019re producing the podcast as part of a school-based internship with gun violence prevention organization Frontline Dads<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The goal is to show other young people it\u2019s okay to share your feelings with your friends, said Alston, who is 16 and lost a classmate to gun violence in middle school. He said it\u2019s hard to find an adult to talk to at school. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe adults, they\u2019re not going to really hear us out,\u201d he said. \u201cBut students talking to students, that\u2019s real life conversation. \u2026 Nobody\u2019s gonna admit that they really going through something. So by hearing other students admit it, they feel comfortable enough to where they can admit it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first episode features the students interviewing a special guest from the Philadelphia Anti-Drug Anti-Violence Network<\/a>. Their next episode will feature a roundtable discussion about the reasons for gun violence in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think gun violence is more so where a person is mentally at,\u201d Alston said during the recording session. \u201cIf everything\u2019s not okay at home, your mom\u2019s on drugs, your pops don\u2019t care about you, that\u2019s all gonna be taken out on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I think gun violence come from is not knowing yourself,\u201d said Goodwin, who like Alston is 16. \u201cIt\u2019s about love all around, loving yourself as a person, and not even wanting to put yourself in that predicament.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like people want to be something, so they look up to the next person, like follow the next leader,\u201d said David Torres, 17. <\/p>\n

That missing sense of self-love, combined with pressure from peers or social media and trauma at home, can propel someone toward gun violence if they don\u2019t have a place to process those feelings, the hosts explained.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why they and other students in their internship program are also pushing for solutions on their school campus. They recently submitted a proposal to their administration for a \u201cdeescalation room\u201d where students who are feeling overwhelmed can go to take a breather.<\/p>\n

During the recording session the teens discussed their ideas for the space, which would be called the \u201cCougar\u2019s Den\u201d after their school mascot.<\/p>\n

\u201cA space where it\u2019s calming, the aroma is right, the music is nice, you got all your necessities in there,\u201d Goodwin said.<\/p>\n

She encouraged her fellow students to visit the room when they feel angry \u201cinstead of just lashing out on the next person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several Philadelphia elementary schools have deescalation rooms as part of a Temple University-supported program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The students are planning future podcast episodes on violence and other topics. They record at PSTV,<\/a> the educational channel for the School District of Philadelphia. The fully staffed, multi-room recording studio in the basement of district headquarters is available for free to all K-12 students in the city. The Vaux students received in-studio coaching from journalist P.O.C at Revive Radio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Goodwin said it\u2019s important to keep talking about gun violence because it\u2019s become \u201cnormalized\u201d in Philly.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody just goes on to the next day after somebody dies,\u201d she said. \u201cLike it\u2019s just something we are all supposed to experience one day in our life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with shootings in Philadelphia on the decline, young people still need support as they grieve, as well as guidance on how to not get caught up in conflict, the Vaux students said. They hope both the podcast and the deescalation room can prevent future shootings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everybody just decided what they wanted to do in life and took the time out to think about theirselves, then there wouldn\u2019t be no violence, or maybe no going to jail, stuff like that,\u201d said Alston.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to get vulnerable with yourself to know yourself, so that you can find yourself and you won\u2019t be in dumb situations because you want to be like the next person,\u201d said Goodwin.<\/p>\n

This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Philadelphia and The New York Times\u2019s Headway Initiative, supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) via the Local Media Foundation.<\/p>\n

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter to keep up with news on the city\u2019s public school system.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7623,18513,28,69,71,70,7625,8242,61726,3315],"class_list":["post-133579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-chalkbeat","tag-gun-violence-prevention","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philly","tag-podcast","tag-recording-studio","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}