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GIRAFFE OF THE MONTH
Making a Difference
Azim Khamisa and Ples FelixThe bare facts of the story are these: Azim Khamisa's 20-year-old son, Tariq, was making a delivery for a San Diego pizza parlor when he was shot and killed in a failed robbery attempt by a gang. The killer was Ples Felix's 14-year-old grandson and ward, Tony Hicks, who was sentenced as an adult for the murder and is now serving time in California State Prison at Calipatria. That could have been the end of the story. But it was only the beginning.
Khamisa, an international banker whose family had fled violence in East Africa 21 years earlier, was devastated by his son's death, yet he reached out to the killer's family, realizing that they too had lost a boy. Felix, a former Green Beret who is a program manager for San Diego County, was devastated by what his grandson had done-- on the first night he had ever defied his grandfather and left the house to meet with the gang. Felix went alone to a gathering of the grieving Khamisa family, telling them of his own grief over what his grandson had done. Khamisa established a foundation in his son's memory; and he and Felix formed an alliance that transforms their losses into a resolve to see that other families do not suffer such tragedies. "There were victims on both ends of the gun," says Khamisa. "Ples and I have become like brothers."
Today Khamisa and Felix go again and again into schools-together-to talk to students about Tariq's death and about gangs, to help the kids talk about the awful effects of violence on their own lives, and to affirm that they will avoid violence themselves. Kids hearing the two men's story and seeing them working together also get an unforgettable picture of a response to violence that is not more violence and hatred. Commenting on the school sessions, Khamisa says, "Every time you talk one youngster out of committing homicide, you save two children." Both Felix and Khamisa are speaking out for "restorative justice," a way of dealing with criminals that helps lawbreakers understand what they have done and make restitution to those they have harmed, rather than just sending them to prisons. "The way we deal now with lawbreakers does nothing for those they have injured, for reforming the criminal or for repairing society," says Ples Felix.
Visit the Giraffe website to learn about The Giraffe Program, a K-12 curriculum that teaches kids about real heroes and gets them going on lives of courage, caring and responsibility, and the Giraffe Partners Trunk--everything a business or club needs to help a classroom full of kids to stand tall.
Copyright © 2001 The Giraffe Project, all rights reserved.Posted with permission by New Horizons for Learning
http://www.newhorizons.org
E-mail: info@newhorizons.org