Santa Fe students hope to raise awareness of gun violence

Dec. 3—Brightly painted tapestries memorializing victims of gun violence hung from the walls at Capital High School this week as Santa Fe's middle and high schools observed Gun Violence Prevention Week.

Each tapestry, 3 to 5 feet long, was labeled with the name of the Santa Fe school responsible for making it. They were painted golden orange and emerald, bubble-gum pink and navy. Some were decorated with flowers, others with butterflies. Some included photos, others silhouettes. Some depicted items — footballs, horses, books — while others offered messages of peace.

Each of the tapestries' decorated panels served as a memorial for one person — often a child or teenager — killed by gun violence in the U.S., and the bottom of each tapestry carried the same simple message: "End gun violence!"

Student wellness ambassadors designed the tapestry projects and other initiatives, including gun lock distributions and memorial art projects, in collaboration with district wellness officials and the advocacy group New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. Their goal: To give students a venue to learn more about gun violence and discuss it with their peers.

The ambassadors' efforts culminated Friday in assemblies dedicated to getting students to talk about gun violence and its impact on their communities. By the end of the assemblies, all Capital High students had the opportunity to take the Student Pledge Against Gun Violence, in which they promised never to carry a gun to school, never to solve a dispute with a gun and influence their friends to keep them from resolving disputes with guns.

The students also heard from former New Mexico United soccer player and coach David Estrada, who shared his own history with gun violence as a youth growing up in Salinas, Calif., and spurred students to share their perspectives on the subject.

"I do not have solutions for [the gun violence that] is being normalized in our communities," Estrada said before the crowd of students. "What I do know is that you guys holding space for each other to discuss and heal from the impact of gun violence is creating a path that will develop into actionable change. ... Make your voices heard for yourselves, your comunidad and your future."

Student wellness ambassadors Crystal Valenzuela, an 11th-grader, and Jesus "Jay" Orona said raising awareness about gun violence and gun safety among the Capital High School community is an essential step toward a safer community, in and out of school. Both said they have been personally impacted by gun violence.

"I hope a lot of people will start noticing that we have too much gun violence in this world. We're trying to show [other students] what happened to other people. It could affect their families, friends, classmates, teachers. It's really hard to lose a friend or a family member [to] gun violence," Orona said.

Adult organizers Jenn Jevertson, assistant director of Santa Fe Public Schools' Office of Student Wellness, and Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, agreed.

These activities were intended to help students stop and think about violence and their own experiences as well as how to keep a safe distance and respond in case they encounter a gun, Jevertson said.

"If we don't have these conversations with kids and we don't help them have a voice on this issue, gun violence will escalate," Viscoli said.

Meanwhile, Viscoli believes the pledge's encouragement to avoid solving conflicts with violence and urge friends to do likewise really does impact students. Since 2014, when Santa Fe schools first implemented the pledge, the rate of students bringing a weapon to school has dropped by 52 percent, according to the New Mexico Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey. Viscoli suspects gun violence prevention education played a role in the decline.

"Youth deserve to grow up in a world where they don't have to worry about gun violence — especially not at school and not when they're hanging out with their friends," Jevertson said. "We're really hoping that all of this awareness goes a little deeper through these conversations."