Community Anti-Violence Education

Prison is the perfect place to stop the cycle of violence. Many incarcerated individuals have sincere desires to turn their lives around and see their communities become safer places. CAVE provides EJP students an opportunity to train as peer facilitators, and to support others’ efforts to engage in social and emotional learning that can lead to greater self-awareness and social change. Participating in this program also provides transferable skills that help them gain employment upon release, and equips them for continued work as peacemakers, especially in Chicago, where most EJP students return. 

Trained CAVE facilitators lead bi-weekly sessions around a trauma-informed anti-violence curriculum called SELF, or Self-Emotion-Loss-Future. The members of the group are younger men from the general population who must apply to participate. Non-incarcerated members of the group help to co-facilitate and support the meetings, and provide resources from the outside.

According to one of the founders of the CAVE program, Joseph Mapp, “There is a need to teach young men not what to think, but how to think things through.”

The current CAVE coordinator is Laura Kaimes.

Interested in Getting Involved?

Apply to be a part of C.A.V.E below