Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective is a nonprofit organization where artists and urban youth collect stories, reframe and retell them through art to promote understanding, civic pride, and literacy. Story Stitchers work with local youth often focuses on gun violence and implicit bias.
Recent projects in which youth address issues of violence include a new book publication entitled Not Another One! A Discussion on Gun Violence. The book includes a youth-led discussion that opens communication and identifies commonality, greater understanding, and ways to cooperate and collaborate between city police and teenage youth as both work to lower the high rates of gun violence in St. Louis, Missouri. The discussion details citizen rights, police policies and procedures, trauma caused by gun violence, and possible solutions in a frank, honest, and respectful discussion.
Adults invited by the teens included:
- Lt. Col. Ronnie Robinson, Deputy Chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police and Commander of the Bureau of Community Affairs
- Rachel Smith, Chief Prosecutor for the St. Louis Attorney’s Office
- Carl Filler from Mayor Slay’s Office, Director of Strategic Policy Initiatives and Community Partnerships
- Dr. Jason Purnell, Associate Professor at the Brown School of Social Work and a Faculty Scholar in the Institute for Public Health at Washington University
- Dr. Renee Manley-Markowski from Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor in the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Saint Louis University
The discussion was transcribed and a book is now available with foreword by Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
The book may be purchased here.
View the 2015 discussion video here.
For more information, please email storystitchers@gmail.com and visit storystitchers.org.