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PLATFORM : Lifting Barriers

September 30, 1991|AQEELA SHERRILLS | AQEELA SHERRILLS, 22, teaches "life management" skills at Jordan Downs, the housing project in Watts where a recent arson fire fueled tensions between black and Latino residents. Sherrills, a former gang member who works for actor Jim Brown's Amer-I-Can Program, speaks about resolving racial conflicts:

We need a program that teaches motivation, self esteem, how to communicate properly. That's the reason why that situation happened down here, no communication. There's a language barrier and a barrier of culture.

We have a proposal to help create better relations. We would like to train Hispanics to teach our class. They'll teach it to their community and we'll teach it to our homeys. Then then we'll be able to come together and discuss things.

Part of our methodology is to have "feeling" sessions where individuals say how they feel, without interruption or reprisal. There are no right or wrong feelings. Then individuals say how they identify with that feeling. In that way we find we all suffer from the same problems. That's when we learn to really understand.

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