Not Mad: Group of Bed-Stuy men, We Make Us Better, escort pedestrians in the wake of robberies
Posted: December 1, 2010 Filed under: Articles, Gender, Not Mad Leave a comment »They’re not part of a political club, they don’t come from any one church and they’ve never been particularly active in the community – until now.
After a spate of recent muggings and robberies, a group of 20 Bedford-Stuyvesant men started escorting people home as they got off the train and are walking through the neighborhood reaching out to young men.
“We’re not the Guardian Angels, we’re not armed,” said Kareem Varlack, 35, a field technician for Verizon and a founding member of the group We Make Us Better.
“We’re about encouraging males to be involved, because you don’t see men in their 20s, 30s and 40s involved in the community anymore, so we’re trying to bridge that gap.”
Once a week – on random evenings – the men walk subway riders home from the Utica Ave. train station. They also sponsored a neighborhood outreach walk earlier this month, stopping to talk to young men hanging out on the corners.
“I’ve been here now 15 years, and I never walk around,” said co-founder Thomas Simms, 41, who works in finance.
“I’ve never done any kind of marching or activism. I deal with the swim team parents at the Bed-Stuy YMCA, that’s as far as I go
