Dealing Hope
A Youth Mentor Builds Resilience in the Face of Adversity
Seventeen-year-old Javen Bennett learned how to recognize the sound of fireworks vs. gunfire at an early age. Growing up in the Tamarind Avenue area of West Palm Beach, FL, violence and trauma characterized his neighborhood and hope was in short supply.
“There was a time I couldn’t walk down the street with headphones on because I had to constantly pay attention,” Bennett said. “Anything could happen at any minute.”
That anything could be a shooting down the street where a stray bullet landed in the playground. A police chase where you are mistaken for someone else. Or a gunshot that ends the life of a friend you had played football with just an hour before.
Bennett recognizes how community trauma undermines individual and community resilience. “A lot of us had the mindset that we wanted to be something in life, but because of the neighborhood, we got sucked into gang life, dope, and dropping out of school,” he said. “It takes a person to be strong-minded to believe they won’t be trapped in the hood forever. And it takes that one person to lead for others to follow and say, ‘if he can do it, I can do it.’”
SOWING THE SEEDS OF RESILIENCE
Bennett has become that person as a Hope Dealer® Mentor for Inner City Innovators in West Palm Beach, a nonprofit organization that focuses on mentoring, community engagement, anti-violence workshops, and other initiatives aimed at breaking the cycles of violence plaguing communities. But before he became a mentor, he was a mentee in need of guidance.
Just three years ago, Bennett’s mentors, Ricky Aiken, founder and executive director of Inner City Innovators, and Norman Austin, programs director, were called almost daily by Bennett’s school principal to pick him up because of fighting. Aiken and Austin had become his surrogates, stepping in for Bennett’s mother who often traveled for work, and his mentors, guiding Bennett to discover and build his own resilience.
Aiken and Austin are from Bennett’s community, known faces who are inspiring inner-city youth to embody the change so desperately needed in their communities to eradicate youth delinquency and gun violence. Bennett knew he wanted—and needed—to become a part of a Hope Dealer Mentoring Clique, groups that meet weekly for mentoring and leadership development and come together for community service and “get out of the hood” trips to places like Orlando. Under Aiken’s and Austin’s wings, the phone calls from the principal stopped, and Bennett’s grades improved. He created a resume, got a job, and learned how to save his money.
Bennett credits Aiken and Austin with believing in his potential and so much more. “Ricky and Norman taught me how to become a grown man, how to make good choices, what’s important in life, and about responsibility.”
One of the greatest examples of Bennett demonstrating responsibility and resilience came in the form of getting to and from his job at Wingstop. He found himself without a ride one day. Rather than forgoing his shift or asking for a ride (he was taught “not to ask people for things”) he walked the eight miles to get there. And when he didn’t have a ride home the following day, he walked again. When Aiken heard, he donated a car to Bennett.
FROM MENTEE TO MENTOR
Bennett is exactly the type of youth leader Inner City Innovators seeks for Hope Dealer Mentors—an on-the-ground agent of change who believes that real change happens when the people who need it, lead it. He is a constant presence to his twelve mentees ages 13-18, holding them accountable for attending school and keeping up their grades, having meals together, taking them to the gym for a workout, and hosting two-hour group conversations every Wednesday, a place where Bennett sees real progress. “The first week, they won’t participate, the second week they give simple one or two-word answers, but by the fourth week, they see how open we are, and they start to get comfortable and share. We get them to see that we’re family and we’re here to help.”
Some of the most powerful conversations come through “resonance,” a time when youth share an experience and how it resonated with them, and others can comment on how they had similar experiences. “In our community, when we have a problem, we’re told to stop talking about it, get over it,” Bennett said. “We show that you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and step out of that zone.”
Bennett looks to Aiken and Austin as the two people who stepped out to change the trajectory of his life and his community. “It took those two to make the change for others to follow along,” said Bennett. “Despite all the wrong in our neighborhood, people saw kids prospering and learning and believed Hope Dealers could change lives.”
Now Bennett is the one changing lives. “I’ve learned that resiliency is facing adversity and trauma head-on and being strong about it. I tell youth to take that chance, don’t be afraid. We’re here to help you become something in life.”
This article first appeared in the December 2021 issue of The Well of PBC, the primary resource for behavioral health and wellness in Palm Beach County, Florida.