BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Buffalo Public Schools partners with Villa Maria College to engage and address racial inequalities in schools, classrooms, and the community after five months of Tops mass shooting.
The session is titled "Community Building Through Centering Joy: Let's Heal and Be Real" with the purpose and goal of developing collective healing through courageous dialogue.
A freshman at Villa Maria College, Ja'Kai Calhoun, tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person it has been difficult going back to school.
"It's hard to just go back to school and act like everything is alright," he says. "I was with my mother at the time and we heard about it from someone in the are and I didn't believe it."
Calhoun knew a former high school teacher who was inside with her kids and survived.
"It was just a really scary and traumatic experience for her and scary for me to even hear about it and I wasn't even there," Calhoun says.
The Chief of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Initiatives, Fatima Morrell, says the purpose of this event is to ignite students with self-healing.
"It begins with self-healing and that's why we initiated 350 today in healing circles," she says. "And discuss in a deep way with trained facilitators what the White Supremacist has done to traumatize our community but what we must do to overcome that trauma."
The President of Villa Maria College, Dr. Matthew Giordano, says having these group discussions is vital.
"Because if they don't then we'll going to continue to seeing these things repeated over and over and we need our young people to be leaders in this world," Dr. Giordano says.
Meantime some students say these discussions help with growing.
"We got to grow as people and I feel like things like this and getting together like this is perfect for growth," Ja'Kai Calhoun says.
There will be a more in-depth conversation about racism, violence, and White Supremacy at Villa Maria College on October 18th at 7 p.m.
