Project: Streetworker Program
Organization: United Teen Equality Center
Lowell, MA
Prepared by JuanCarlos Rivera, Sako Long, Gregg Croteau, and Ricky Le

The Courage to Leave
It’s hard to accurately describe a story that often takes you back to an image of a hospital room, praying for one of your teens to survive the night. And hoping…just hoping…that other teens you knew were not responsible for the violence that placed him in that very same room.

From the age of 5 years old, Ricky spent many years of his life growing up in a foster home. At the age of 12, he finally got his chance to live with his biological family. Having to move to a new, much bigger city, Ricky talks about getting lost quickly, having trouble adjusting to a new city life. At school, things seemed to get worse. He struggled with keeping up at school, had few friends, and no one to talk to. Ricky quickly found himself desperately trying to reach out to connect with anyone that would befriend him.

The Moon Light Strangers, aka MLS (a local youth gang in Lowell), welcomed him with open arms. In the beginning, Ricky’s new friends made him feel incredible comfortable. They were the cool kids in school, and they wanted to spend all their time with him. Ricky quickly felt as though he belonged.  MLS gave Ricky an instant family, protection, and a good time almost every night.

Ricky was so wrapped up with MLS that everything else in his life didn’t matter anymore. School became a distraction and hard to manage. His family’s concerns turned into arguments and he felt misunderstood. The only place where he felt as though he wasn’t questioned, yelled at, or treated with disrespect was with MLS.

Ricky decided to pledge his life to MLS and was “jumped in” to his new family (a ritual of being beaten and punched while surrounded in a circle by fellow gang brothers). After that day, many more days occurred filled with a different kind of violence, one that found him and his fellow gang members fighting other teens that he never saw in his life. He was now living in fear, creating new enemies every day.

One day after school, he found himself in another fight. This time, the fight was broken up by Sako and others from UTEC’s Streetworker team. Sako convinced Ricky to get a ride home with him so that he would not run into further trouble on the street. The Streetworkers explained to Ricky what they did and some of the programs that UTEC had to offer. Though appreciative, Ricky was still distant and apprehensive of getting further involved.  However, after Sako and others kept “chipping away,” continually staying in contact with Ricky and urging him to get more involved with UTEC, Ricky eventually stopped by and a connection was quickly made. The relationship between Ricky and Sako focused on building upon his strengths, helping him identify short and long-term goals.

Soon enough, they began talking about why he was involved with MLS and the effects of his involvement (both positive and not so positive). Sako never preached to him about getting out. Having himself been gang-involved in the past, he knows far too well that his effectiveness as a Streetworker does not lie in preaching and convincing. Rather, his talents usually lay in his ability to consistently “chip away,” knocking at that door which leads into a more two-way dialogue on all that is going on in a young person’s life…not just that surrounding gang life and violence on the streets. Sako knows that the true skill simply lies in creating a place where Ricky could come to once he chooses change…once he chooses to transform his own life.

On a September night, one in which Ricky often describes as being a particularly windy one, he made such a change. He decided to break free from his gang set. Unfortunately, Ricky felt that he didn’t want any “loose ends” and wanted to do it “the real way.”  This particular way involved him skipping school and meeting up with his fellow gang brothers at a local park in order to be “jumped out.”  Similar to the initial ritual he endured, he expected to be beaten and punched by his gang brothers for a specific number of seconds while he stood still within the circle enclosing him. Unfortunately, these expected seconds turned into horrific minutes. Ricky was severely beaten that night by a group of his “former” gang brothers.

They dropped him off at the hospital when they thought they heard his neck crack and he lay in a coma for 10 days.

The Streetworkers eventually received word that Ricky was at the hospital and the entire team rushed to the emergency room.  Sako and other members of our team continued to be a support for Ricky during various periods while hospitalized.  Unfortunately, the Streetworkers endured another loss this evening, as we had known several of the teens allegedly involved in committing this awful crime.

Although one of the teens we had worked with is now in prison, we are so proud to say that Ricky has now been recovering and recuperating over the past 3 years, trying to regain all the movements and speech that we often take for granted. Fortunately, Ricky returned back to Lowell about a year ago and instantly stepped back into UTEC.  Today, Sako and other UTEC staff have assisted him in finding employment, working toward his GED, and most importantly, trying to deal with the new challenges in his life due to his traumatic brain injury.

Over the past year, Ricky has also spent considerable time presenting his story with UTEC staff at various conferences and events in the hope of reaching out to parents, police officers and other youth so that they can best understand how to support teens who may be going through similar issues with gang involvement.  He has become a leader for peace by transforming a horrific tragedy into a powerful story of change. And today, he has already begun the process of fulfilling his dream to write a book detailing his life story.

We look forward to getting one of the first copies of his book.

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