{"id":37910,"date":"2016-03-17T13:58:05","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T18:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=37910"},"modified":"2016-03-17T13:58:05","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T18:58:05","slug":"kaos-youth-club-uses-sports-mentoring-as-alternative-to-chicagos-chaotic-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/kaos-youth-club-uses-sports-mentoring-as-alternative-to-chicagos-chaotic-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"KAOS youth club uses sports, mentoring as alternative to Chicago’s chaotic streets"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Hannah Gebresilassie <\/strong><\/p>\n

Ty Young is giving back to the streets that put a bullet in his son.<\/p>\n

While Young, a pharmacy tech, couldn’t keep his son from being shot in 2013, he could do something about the South Side youth culture that created the perilous landscape in the first place.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“If you see everything negative around you, then you think it’s the normal,” says Young, who founded KAOS<\/a>, Keeping Adolescents Off the Street, an Auburn Gresham-based nonprofit that provides sports and educational activities to keep boys off the streets.<\/p>\n

[vimeo 159356489 w=474]<\/p>\n

Young understands well the threat children face, whether they’re caught up in street gangs or are innocent bystanders, like his son Cameron, shot in a drive-by at 84th and Constance. Cameron Young sustained shots in the chest and hip when gangs collided nearby.<\/p>\n

Unaffiliated with gangs, Cameron was penalized for simply being at the “wrong place at the wrong time,” Young says.<\/p>\n

Cameron survived the attack and bounced back after being treated at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Now 17, he is a junior with aspirations to play football in college.<\/p>\n

Young hopes to eliminate experiences like Cameron’s by providing an alternative to gangs and violence in a city where nearly a quarter of 16-19-year-old black males were out of school and work in 2014, according to a new University of Illinois at Chicago study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

KAOS is just one of many Chicago organizations providing an alternative for kids growing up in unsafe neighborhoods. Research shows teenagers growing up in lower-income neighborhoods lack access to ample after-school programming.<\/p>\n

Young wanted to change that.<\/p>\n

“When you know that it’s a level that you can reach, you have something to strive for,” says Young, following a basketball game at Dolton Park District, in south suburban Dolton.<\/p>\n

Rather than give up after his son was shot, Young says the incident is another reason to keep KAOS going because boys are safer playing basketball on a secure court than the streets. At presstime, 143 shooting incidents<\/a> have occurred on the South Side this year, double the amount from the same time last year.<\/p>\n

“Sports is a tool that can help them stay focused, not necessarily get them to the NBA or NFL.” Young says. “Kids are around other likeminded positive players, so it’s a much healthier environment than getting caught up with gangbangers on the street.”<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Ty Young and KAOS basketball team members huddle following a game at Dolton Park District. (Hannah Gebresilassie\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hannah Gebresilassie Ty Young is giving back to the streets that put a bullet in his son. While Young, a pharmacy tech, couldn’t keep his son from being shot in 2013, he could do something about the South Side youth culture that created the perilous landscape in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":37936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[675,31,585],"tags":[2522,597,61,1776,2523,2102,1554,1339,545,1394,1593],"class_list":["post-37910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-justice","category-sports","category-winter-2016","tag-after-school","tag-basketball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-basketball","tag-gun","tag-gun-shot","tag-gun-violence","tag-south-side","tag-sports","tag-university-of-chicago","tag-university-of-illinois-at-chicago"],"yoast_head":"\nKAOS youth club uses sports, mentoring as alternative to Chicago's chaotic streets - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/kaos-youth-club-uses-sports-mentoring-as-alternative-to-chicagos-chaotic-streets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"KAOS youth club uses sports, mentoring as alternative to Chicago's chaotic streets - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Hannah Gebresilassie Ty Young is giving back to the streets that put a bullet in his son. 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