Durell Green
Choose Freedom Program Manager
1. What is your role at your organization?
My name is Durell Green, I am the program manager of the CHOOSE Freedom program at CHOOSE 180. Our goal is to work with the young people in our community most impacted by the cycle of gun violence, whether survivors or perpetrators. I strongly believe that healing is needed for everyone involved on all sides of the equation.
2. What brought you into this role or to the work of gun violence prevention, intervention, and/or healing more broadly?
My introduction to this work began before I realized it as I was sitting in a maximum security prison at 18 for a crime committed with a gun. Given time to think and begin my own healing I recognized my situation was bigger than me and that people like myself had a responsibility to respond.
I started volunteering in gang intervention and reentry which led me to CHOOSE 180. Taking hope into the streets and prisons became my life mission. Given the trauma involved in this work it can be hard at times to wonder if you are making an impact, and if the efforts are futile.
3. What is the most rewarding aspect of your work?
Seeing the resilience of our young people never ceases to inspire me. At their stage of development, I accepted life as it was and had no optimism for my future. They however, are graduating school, working jobs, and pushing forward amidst some of the worst statistical times of gun violence in our community. CHOOSING FREEDOM. It is my honor, privilege, and duty to continue making amends for my own contributions and equipping those who will truly lead us to healed communities in the next generation.