Senior Program Officer Marie Williams and Dhmyni Samuels, a junior at Germantown Friends School who recently completed a Philadelphia Youth Network WorkReady internship with the Stoneleigh Foundation, reflect on gun violence and its root causes in the city of Philadelphia.
As sometimes happens in places plagued by economic hardship, gun violence is also a perennial problem in Philadelphia. In 2017, there were 1,408 shooting victims in the city; and of the 351 total murder victims, 83% were killed by guns. This year, as the Stoneleigh Foundation — along with many others in government, philanthropy and in the community — continued to grapple with how to address the gun violence problem, we welcomed an intern, Dhmyni Samuels, to join our staff for the summer.
Dhmyni, a rising junior at a Philadelphia area school, came to us through the Philadelphia Youth Network’s WorkReady program. WorkReady is designed to address the career skills gap by partnering with employers and youth-serving systems to build a coordinated approach to preparing young people for future employment, establish a talent pipeline and provide safe spaces for youth over the summer.