MIRAMAR--Miramar recently was awarded a $146,068 Project Safe Neighborhood grant to educate residents on gun violence.

The grant, from the U.S Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance, will establish a multigenerational safety strategy, officially known as Do Your Community A FAVOR.

The Miramar Police Department will be coordinating the program, which is creating a task force, and offering lectures and workshops. ASPIRA Broward and Memorial Healthcare Systems are partners, said Tymira Mack, grant writer for the Police Department.

"I think it's great in terms of community effort to have approximately 200 people working on the task force, trying to make a positive impact on the community," said Wayne Rawlins, Project Safe Neighborhood executive lead consultant for the Southern District of Florida.

Mack said while serious gun violence is not necessarily endemic to Miramar, the city received the grant because of the diversity of its demographics, ethnicity, income and growth.

"This was just one of our efforts toward making sure our city remains safe," Mack said.

Outreach programs will feature education about firearms, in attempts to reduce violence and accidents.

The focus of the adult education strategy, Do Your Family A FAVOR, will be on safe gun handling and storage practices.

The teen component, Do Yourself a FAVOR, will concentrate on gun safety and education.

Do Your Friends a FAVOR will provide the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle Gun Safe Program to Miramar public school second-graders, and 4- and 5-year-olds in the city's Early Childhood Education Centers.

ASPIRA provides counseling, guidance and leadership development to students. Director Syndia Nazario-Cardona said the nonprofit organization plans to meet weekly with at-risk youths as well as create parental awareness about gun use.

"As an adult, our world is completely different from kids. [ASPIRA wants] parents to come to an understanding of what's going on, not only in the city, but also the peer pressure of the world kids live in," she said.

ASPIRA will be doing evaluations and providing counseling for students deemed at-risk for gun violence before or after school at nine campuses and Beverly Park in Hollywood. Youths ages 11 to 17 who are deemed to be at a higher risk would receive additional counseling.

For its part, Memorial Healthcare Systems also will be providing risk assessments and counseling sessions to at-risk youths.

"We're finding that youths involved in guns are the same youths who engage in [other] risky behaviors, such as substance abuse, juvenile delinquency and unprotected sex," said Tim Curtin, Memorial's director of Community Youth Services.

Curtin said he sees this grant as representative of Miramar's commitment to preventing problems. "Usually programs like this are developed after something happens," he said. "I think it's a wonderful opportunity. It's a great program, and hopefully other cities will see this as a role model."

Mayor Lori Moseley said the program is a welcome contribution, regardless of the degree of gun violence in the city. "Observance of gun safety and understanding of the dangers guns can cause is extremely important in this day and age, unfortunately. We try to keep abreast of the problems of the times," Moseley said.

(source) Sun Sentinel (Laura Burdick-Sherman) 4-07-04