Subscribe Today Proceeds from the
magazine support the
animals at the sanctuary
and No More Homeless Pets
Archives Many of our past editions
are available in .PDF format
Teaming Up
Chicago kids work toward a kinder city
Amy Abern
Michael Gonzalez signed up for the Safe Humane Chicago Youth Leaders Program at Walter Payton College Prep only because he needed the service hours to graduate. The gig seemed almost too easy. Each week, he and 30 other teens visited grammar schools to talk to children about the dangers of dogfighting and ways to be nice to dogs. And (bonus!) each week he got to play with dogs for school credit.
But a funny thing happened: Michael became engaged. Promoting compassion to animals started to mean something to him. He found great satisfaction in teaching kids that dogfighting is a serious crime not just for participants but also for the observers. Communicating the fact that dogs have feelings just like people and watching a young captive audience "get it" - some for the first time - well, that was cool.
As a reward for their hard work, Michael and other youth leaders spent spring break at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. They created walking trails, cleaned cages, scooped poop and socialized with dozens of cats, dogs, birds, rabbits and other sanctuary animals. At the end of the trip, Gonzalez said, "You know, Best Friends is an eye-opening experience; it's an amazing place for animals. What they do here is unreal. But I know we need to work toward a time when places like Best Friends are no longer needed."
Michael and his peers understand that they're part of a much bigger picture: striving for No More Homeless Pets. Their trip to Best Friends put them on the path toward a much larger goal as participants in creating a kinder, safer environment for animals and people.
That's exactly what the youth leaders will continue to do through Safe Humane Chicago (SHC), an unprecedented community-wide alliance dedicated to combating violence by promoting compassion for animals and people. The alliance achieves these goals through four distinct programs for youth, teens, adults and at-risk youth, and a program that supports criminal justice. SHC has more than 1,000 individual participants and 60 organizations from the animal welfare, social services, law enforcement, government and religious sectors, all working together toward the common goal of creating a safe, humane Chicago.
Last year, Best Friends signed on as the SHC national sponsor, looking to replicate this program in other cities. To spearhead this movement, Safe Humane Chicago co-founder Cynthia Bathurst became Best Friends' director of Project Safe Humane.
"We see in this program an organization whose ideals and goals are in concert with Best Friends," says Best Friends co-founder and chief financial officer John Fripp. "Safe Humane aims to create a kinder Chicago for its two constituents: people and animals. Its success lies in the spirit of collaboration from the participating organizations. Adopting this model program was a natural extension for Best Friends as part of our continuing efforts to create a better world through kindness to animals."
The snowball effect
Safe Humane Chicago was built on a series of relationships among people who possess passion and vision: a passion for animals and the vision to create a better world by combining efforts. It's been a win/win situation for the partnerships that make up SHC: An automatic membership base, new networking opportunities and nontraditional funding avenues are the plusses for helping to make Chicago a safer, more humane place for animals and people alike.
The process of joining forces for a common cause can be easily replicated anywhere. "Safe Humane Chicago is a grassroots program," explains Bathurst. "It formed organically over time through the efforts of all involved."
The first seeds of this process can be traced back to two northside Chicago neighborhoods. In the late 90s, Bathurst had her fingers in all kinds of socially significant pies: She joined the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, a collaborative effort between civilians and police to keep neighborhoods safe. In addition, she volunteered as the court advocate for her district. She also served as board president of her neighborhood association, which, at the time, was dealing with a rift between people who had dogs and those who didnt. Bathurst didn't have a dog. But as an animal lover and a community organizer, she saw the need to educate and build consensus on where and how animals and their people could safely enjoy their environs. So Bathurst formed the Dog Advisory Work Group (D.A.W.G.) for the neighborhood association. D.A.W.G. developed "scoop the poop" campaigns, offleash regulations and general protocols.
In the neighboring district lived Stacey Hawk, a community activist and dog trainer. She would eventually become the leader of the SHC Dog Training Oversight Committee. Hawk had just helped launch Chicago's first dog park. In her neighborhood association, she was dealing with dog issues similar to those Bathurst was addressing. At the same time, Bathurst's neighborhood was exploring the possibility of building its own dog park. Bathurst and Hawk brainstormed on how D.A.W.G. might expand to provide education and promote safety and compassion for companion animals not just in their neighborhoods, but throughout Chicago. They worked together on government relations. Hawk continued to consult for neighborhoods requesting dog parks. With the support of the Chicago Police Department, Bathurst formed a court advocacy group to follow crimes against animals. By 2000, all the pieces came together, and D.A.W.G. was officially launched as a nonprofit organization.
"We knew from the beginning we were an apolitical group working in a political minefield," says Hawk. "And we got around that by bringing together people to work as a neutral entity." One day, Melia Carter showed up at a D.A.W.G. meeting. For a client of her public affairs firm, she had recently orchestrated the formation of the Ministerial Alliance Against the Digital Divide (MAADD), a consortium of more than 500 ministers across the country dedicated to promoting personal and economic development in at-risk communities. She would eventually co-found Safe Humane Chicago with Bathurst.
Also an animal lover, Carter suggested to Bathurst that there might be common ground to work together. During their conversation, Bathurst realized she knew one of the founders of MAADD, the Rev. Dr. Walter B. Johnson, Jr., director of faith-based outreach for Best Friends' Project Safe Humane. He and Bathurst had partnered on anti-violence marches and gun-relinquishment programs.
Carter suggested that Johnson and his programs might fit in well with SHC, because of their common interest in stemming violence in general. "I kept seeing the aftermath of violence - criminals behind bars - but nothing to keep the violence from happening in the first place," explains Carter. "I saw this opportunity between D.A.W.G. and MAADD as a kind of merging of the minds, a way to bring the groups together for a massive movement against dogfighting and violence in general."
Johnson saw the same opportunity. He and MAADD joined forces with D.A.W.G. and the Chicago Police Department to officially create the citywide initiative Safe Humane Chicago in September of 2007.
How Safe Humane Chicago works
Then it was time to organize, so that the overall general message of Safe Humane Chicago would reach the greatest possible audience. To that end, Bathurst and Carter created five components of SHC to reach all ages in at-risk communities:
Programming for children: Kids, Animals and Kindness. Offered through faith-based and other community groups, this program teaches children in at-risk neighborhoods the importance of being kind to animals. Led by Safe Humane Chicago members and dog handlers and their dogs, the children learn proper techniques in approaching animals, humane treatment of animals and the dangers of dogfighting. Kids, Animals and Kindness has been presented in four different forums to nearly 1,200 at-risk youth.
Programming for teenagers: Youth Leaders for Safe Humane Chicago. Offered through Walter Payton College Prep as a pilot, the teens helped develop the program they now teach to grammar school children on the importance of being kind to animals. Accompanied by dog handlers and their dogs, the teens demonstrate how to behave around companion and stray animals, and explain the dangers associated with dogfighting and animal abuse. The youth leaders have taught this program to more than 1,500 schoolchildren and 100 staff members in 12 schools.
Programming for adults: It's All Connected. Why should adults care about animal welfare when their children are being shot and lured into gangs and fall victim to drugs and violence? Because it's all connected. Bathurst's "It's All Connected" presentation explores how violence against animals often leads to violence against people, and how teaching compassion and respect for companion animals can prevent violence before it starts. To date, Bathurst has presented this program to more than 200 adults.
Programming for at-risk youth: Lifetime Bonds. This program engages teens and young adults who have been involved in or introduced to dogfighting. By working with SHC members and dog handlers and their dogs, the participants learn to respect animals and people through training and socialization. Lifetime Bonds has been taught to some 100 juvenile offenders and 14 juvenile probation staff.
Support for Criminal Justice. This program exists as a partnership of D.A.W.G., Chicago and Cook County government agencies, and Chicago's community policing network. It provides training, support and interventions in situations involving animal neglect, abuse and dogfighting. It has also been instrumental in creating laws advocating for animal welfare. Since the inception of the D.A.W.G. court advocacy program in 2000, more than 700 volunteer advocates have attended close to 3,000 court hearings related to animal cruelty.
Up close and personal
Dog trainer Wendy DeCarlo and her dogs Boomer and Scooby have attended most of the youth leader presentations in the schools. DeCarlo sits on the SHC Dog Training Oversight Committee, the group that recruits dog handlers and dogs to participate in Safe Humane Chicago presentations. There are two dozen dog-and-handler teams signed up with SHC. DeCarlo is part of this, she says, because she sees "change taking place before my very eyes."
"I think it's essential to have that physical experience of touching a dog, especially for those who are afraid," notes DeCarlo. "Once they experience the dog being friendly, they're not scared anymore."
Case in point: Last year, Bathurst and Hawk presented Kids, Animals and Kindness to a church group of approximately 30 children. Bathurst asked, "How many of you have seen a dogfight?" Just about every hand went up.
"Even if they had not really seen a dogfight, they thought it was important - cool - to say so, to impress us," says Bathurst. "We needed to show this wasn't cool. And the most effective way to start to do that was through interaction with the dog."
Many of the children said they knew people who fought dogs for a living, and those dogs were anything but friendly. It took a while to coax the youngsters to actually walk up and pet Bravo, Hawk's gentle shepherd. But many of them did pet Bravo and, as a result, the way they viewed dogs changed. They learned that dogs had feelings just like they did. And they could see one of those feelings expressed in Bravo's wagging tail. "It's always amazing to me how the children transform in just two hours," says Hawk. "You can actually see it happening."
Gathering momentum
Coming up on its third anniversary, Safe Humane Chicago continues to expand its programs and influence. SHC, Best Friends and the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development are partnering on a first-ofits- kind municipal study to determine the needs and resources available for companion animals in Chicago. SHC has also recently launched a new program teaching juvenile offenders to work with shelter dogs. And as more programs spring up, more volunteers sign on to participate.
"The goal is to inspire and empower members of all parts of the community to join us, not justvanimal welfare enthusiasts," says Bathurst. "That's the only way to move us past the plateau we've reached in our movement toward communities in which there are No More Homeless Pets."
For more information about Safe Humane Chicago, visit www.safehumanechicago.org.
Did you like this story? Want more like it? Find out how to subscribe here.
To advertise in the magazine, contact:
Advertising Sales, Best Friends Magazine
Lisa Dulyea (310) 916-7956
Classified Advertising
Jim Schnepel (801) 231-3666
Advertising Contracts FAX: (435) 644-2266
Membership questions?
Contact Mailings@bestfriends.org
or 435-644-2001 ext 4801.
Thank you!
