After Josey shooting, teens share concerns, experiences

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Mentors and mental health advocates want to hear from students and teens about the issues they face in school and in the community.

The young people can speak about it during a forum tonight that comes three weeks after a shooting inside Josey High School injured a student.

Soon after the shooting, a town hall meeting was held for adults in surrounding neighborhoods to come together and have conversations about long-term solutions to the violence threatening young people.

“I’m trying to set an example. I’m trying to be a leader, not a follower,” said Donatavious Wilber, a teen and recent Josey High School grad who spoke out. “If I’d be a follower, it can end up two ways: in the ground or behind bars. I don’t want that to happen to nobody.”

He wanted to be an example of a strong leader by coming to the forum on Wednesday night.

“I want to see change in the world and if we don’t get it, this road will be corrupted. I want to start change and it changes now,” he said. “I’d give people my last if I could. I help my grandma, my mom, my younger sister. I’m here with her because she was nervous to come over here to do it herself.”

With tonight’s meeting at the Purpose Center, 1650 Olive Road near Josey, organizers are keeping their promise to make the meetings more than a one-time thing.

Organizers say this is the second step in finding a solution.

Jamilah Dukes and Dr. Onnie Poe are among the organizers of the meetings.

“The youth interaction was one of the solutions that we came up with in the first meeting. We need to have youth interaction. I was like, ’Hmm we identified the problem. Let’s go into the solution,’” said Dukes.

It requires a flip in the script.

“If you want to see the change, you have to be the change,” said Dukes.

Transformation is something Dukes knows firsthand.

“I am the oldest, I had a little brother. Both of my parents were addicted to drugs when I was growing up. So I had to grow up really, really fast. There were nights that I went without food. I was homeless. Nights I didn’t know what was going to happen the next day. So, I know what their struggles are,” she said.

She believes a different approach to community help is the game changer.

“I think that you just have to meet them where they are. A lot of them want to have the conversation. But they don’t feel heard,” she said.

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So she’s passing the mic to the next generation.

“We will introduce ourselves and have affirmation. We have a PowerPoint presentation that has questions, like what it is that has been affecting them in their community, in their schools and in their home life. What are you going through?” said Dukes. “We could guess or assume that okay, everything’s okay. I’m a great parent, I take care of my kids, I provide this, I provide that provide, but is that what they need?”

Bringing it back to the adults at the next meeting.

“We take the information we gather tonight and we take it back to the next community forum. Hopefully, they’ll give us the juice tonight. Then we can take that their feedback and take it and sit and look at it and figure out how do we create a solution that’s going to benefit them from their perspective, not just how adults would do it,” she said.

The shooting at Josey happened after an argument between two students escalated. One of the students pulled out a gun and fired it, injuring the other student in the finger.

While the injury wasn’t life-threatening, it was a wake-up call for some parents and educators who realized how quickly it could have turned deadly for one or more students.

Richmond County schools have been the site of brawls and fights in recent weeks, but this was the first shooting in recent memory inside a school building here.

The suspect is in a youth detention center undergoing a mental evaluation.

Dukes is committed to making them a success, working to reach out to each person who attended the initial meeting to find what they thought could’ve been done better. And Poe has experience in the Richmond County School System, bringing to the table her experience as an educator and a mental health advocate.

At tonight’s meeting, the organizers hope young people between ages 11 and 18 will share their experiences in the community, school and home.

Moving forward, they’ll hold another forum Sept. 18 and the third Monday of every month.

Parents are welcome at tonight’s event, too, so they can listen in a judgment-free zone for kids.

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