Leaders of NGOs from 12 countries came to Camden Friday as part of a U.S. State Department program on helping at-risk youth.
CAMDEN -- It could be anything from a dispute over who sells drugs on which corner, or just a perceived sign of disrespect.
As Tim Gallagher laid out the conflicts that spark dozens of homicides in the city year year -- 10 alone were killed last month -- heads nodded around the packed living room.
The 17 leaders of nonprofits and social services organizations, who gathered at Guadalupe Family Services Friday afternoon as part of a U.S. State Department program focusing on the needs of underserved youth, came from thousands of miles away, but they know those reasons well.
"We have a similar experience of living and working amidst violence and poverty," said Gallagher, the assistant director of Guadalupe Family Service's CASA youth development program.
The visitors, hailing from 12 different Spanish-speaking countries in Central and South America, are in the midst of a five-city tour throughout the United States aimed at exposing the delegates to family support programs, after-school activities and other methods urban community groups have used to address pervasive violence and gang activity in their cities.
The group, made up of educators, heads of non-governmental organizations including victim advocacy groups and other experts in their fields, arrived in the U.S. June 6. They spent time in Washington D.C. before arriving in Philadelphia Thursday and will move on to Cleveland, New Orleans and Los Angeles before returning home on June 24.
Nonprofit organization Citizen Diplomacy International of Philadelphia, which organized the delegates' visit to the Greater Philadelphia Area, brought the delegates to Camden specifically to get an inside look at how CASA works with teens exposed to gun violence, drugs and poverty daily.
Many of their kids live on the same block or around the corner from recent murder scenes, said Sister Helen Cole, the director and founder of Guadalupe Family Services, which counts just three full-time social workers and a handful of part-time employees and volunteers among its small staff. Other kids in their program live in unstable homes, where drug dealing is rampant and a high school diploma is a rarity.
"This is a place where people aren't shooting up or selling drugs," said Cole, who was joined by three teens in the program during Friday's discussion, facilitated through translators.
The CASA program was launched in 2012 -- the same year Camden's murder rate reached an all-time high of 67 -- with just 10 kids but grew, slow and steady through word of mouth, to the point where now more than 100 teens gather at its headquarters on State Street in North Camden throughout the week, participating in activities, after-school tutoring, group discussions and field trips to local attractions. Cole and her small staff also work closely with the county police force, which took over policing duties in the city in 2013, on gang intervention programs.
CASA is now a haven for the students, who are given academic support and constant encouragement. So far, every single one has graduated from high school and have pursued higher education.
"When we have high expectations of these teens, they rise to them," said Cole.
Both Cole and Gallagher said CASA wasn't perfect, but the idea of Friday's discussion wasn't to hand down a set of instructions to their visitors, but to spark a dialogue where the delegates can learn from their setbacks and successes, and vice-versa.
"My biggest goal is to have a conversation about how to provide a warm, welcoming safe space in a dangerous neighborhood," he said.
"We're sharing the same problems and facing the same reality," said Laura Voirturet Gomez, the coordinator of institutional development at Uruguay's Providencia Educational Center, through a translator as Friday's discussion got underway.
Her program shares much of the same focus as Guadalupe Family Services, she said, including making the strengthening of family ties their core mission as a way to help children and teens deal with educational inequalities, poverty and violence. Her counterparts in the U.S. might have more resources at their disposal, but their goals and objectives were the same.
"Now we don't feel so lonely," she said.
Michelle Caffrey may be reached at mcaffrey@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ShellyCaffrey. Find NJ.com on Facebook.