NORTH AMERICA

Geoffrey Canada

Children’s Advocate Works to End Violence

“People can be taught to kill. And children growing up under the conditions of war that we find in many poor communities today learn to think about death and killing as a matter of survival.”

Child and anti-violence advocate Geoffrey Canada grew up on welfare, in a household headed by a single woman in the tenements of New York's South Bronx. Despite the many things he did not have, he realized what he did have: a hard-working and loving mother who gave him a strong set of values, a sense of responsibility, a belief in the importance of education, and a deep desire to make things better not only for himself, but for those around him.

After graduate school, Canada returned to the community to live and work in Harlem. In 1963, Canada joined the staff of the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families. He was named its President and CEO in 1990.

At Rheedlen, he has been instrumental in creating or developing such programs as Rheedlen's Beacon School, Community Pride, the Harlem Freedom Schools, and Peacemakers. He is a coordinator for the Black Community Crusade for Children, a nationwide effort to make saving black children the number one priority in the black community.

Canada has focused his work on exposing the intersection of drugs and guns as a turning point in the violence in our country, and championing community-building as a key response to this violence. The Boston Globe called Canada "the brother who never left the ‘hood because he keeps looking into the faces of the children and seeing himself there."