Yeah

... all the opportunities to do it, and had the talent to do it, but just didn't lean into it because when you're in survival mode every day, you can't fulfill your dreams and your ambitions, right? You have to deal with surviving on a daily basis.

And all my friends that I was around, most of them were in the same predicament, and so we ended up in a very, very dark time when the crack epidemic hit, the war on drugs hit, different factors in our life hit.

And so as I got older and started coming into my adulthood and realizing that there's more that I wanna do for my community than just being in these streets, I wanted to start a program where we can actually help young people fulfill their dreams, their visions, and their ambitions with some help.

And I had to ask myself, "What did, what did I not have and what did my peers not have in our community and in our lives that coulda got us into a better position in life and put us in a s- in a place where we could be more successful?" And that's why I tried to start this organization, to create the village.

I wanted to have a new village, right? The village has been decimated by institutional racism and all kinda other structures, and we have to create our own village.

We can't expect anybody else to.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think that's what we're dealing with is it's complicated at every level.

The work in the field that Paul's describing also goes hand in hand, like he said, that pre-work of deterring.

Right.

But also it goes hand in hand with the fact that that same grandma that's raising her grandkids that can't pay her rent might need some assistance, might need some food stability.

The 19 year old has graduated high school and is just getting in trouble and sitting on the couch at grandma's house or single mama's house or auntie's house or couch surfing needs somewhere to make yourself feel like he's worthy.

of being something more than what he's been, being something more than what he's been exposed to, an internship, an apprenticeship, trying to learn a trade.

What does it look like to get a job and start your first job and work on getting your driver's license, your car, your insurance, your birth certificate, social security card, getting them to feel like I belong in society, not just in this way, there's opportunities for me to do something better and positive for my life.

What can you tell us, though, about Junior Sinico Semo? And what he was trying to do with his life.