Twenty-five years ago, Rhode Island was rocked by a tragic loss. A 15-year-old girl named Jennifer Rivera was shot outside of her house in Providence. She was the state’s key witness in a murder trial and was supposed to testify in court the next day.
It wasn’t an isolated incident — there were 30 homicides in Providence that year. But Rivera’s death would serve as a catalyst. A group from St. Michael’s, a church on Providence’s South Side, banded together to heal the wounds of community violence and stop its spread.
Today, their legacy lives on at the Nonviolence Institute. The community organization supports victims of violence, sends staff members to do street outreach, and runs education programs teaching Martin Luther King Jr.’s theory of nonviolence.
Leading the charge is Lisa Pina-Warren, also known as “Auntie Lisa,” who serves as the executive director of the Nonviolence Institute. Ahead of the 25th anniversary of Rivera’s death, we spoke with Pina-Warren about the toll of community violence today and their efforts to make a change.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Anaridis Rodriguez: What are the principles of non-violence?
Lisa Pina-Warren: You’re testing me! (Laughs.) So our principles are based upon Dr. Martin Luther King’s principles, and the first principle is: “Nonviolence is the way of life for courageous people.” What that means is it takes more to stand up and resist the violence than entertain it.
Anaridis Rodriguez: What did you learn about resolving conflict growing up?
Lisa Pina-Warren: I remember being taught that if someone hit me or bullied me or took something of mine, that I had to react in the same way. I can hear my mother’s voice saying, “Don’t come home and say, someone put their hands on you and you didn’t do anything.”
As a mother, I understand that. I never want my child to come home and say someone harmed them. But it also made me realize that’s teaching violence.
Anaridis Rodriguez: What are you seeing as far as violence in the community nowadays versus when you were coming up in this area?
Lisa Pina-Warren: I’m starting to see a lot more random violence. When we initially started the work, it was to work with young people that were getting involved with gangs. And now I’m starting to see a lot more road rage incidents. Just the other day four teenagers got into an altercation at the movie theater and used a knife and slashed a couple of patrons. So it’s starting to feel a lot more like violence is a huge part of our culture now.
Anaridis Rodriguez: It usually starts with a phone call for you, from either the police department or the hospital. And you show up.
Lisa Pina-Warren: We have a great relationship with Brown University Health. The (hospital’s) social work department will call us 24/7, 365 days a year when there is a victim of community violence. We are there to support the victim, family members, but also hospital staff. If there is any type of gang affiliation outreach workers are there to try to help deescalate the chances of there being an immediate retaliation.
Many times we are called and the victim does not survive. So we are there to support that family when they’re given that horrible news. We are there to help them file victim’s compensation, making funeral arrangements, grief counseling, and then it’s day to day. A case never closes. We have families and individuals that we’ve worked with that lost someone 20 years ago.
Anaridis Rodriguez: This is very personal for you.
Lisa Pina-Warren: I wanted to help young people in the community that we were born and raised in. I lost my brother and I lost friends of mine that I grew up with to the streets and to incarceration.
I started here as a nonviolence trainer, then as a case manager, and then as a street worker, then doing juvenile reentry, then as a victim advocate, then Assistant Director to the Outreach Team, then Director to Victim Services, and then Director of Intervention Services. And throughout all of those years, I did take a break.
But one day [while on break from working at the Nonviolence Institute] I had gotten a call that a young person I was working with had gotten killed. And then I received a call stating that they had made an arrest, and I was relieved for this young man’s family. And after that relief, in that same conversation, they gave me the name of the person that was arrested, and it was my nephew.
And that was really really difficult. This is my brother’s son, my brother that I lost, and I wanted to see his son to have a different life. It made me feel like I wanted to come back (to the Nonviolence Institute) because work wasn’t over. I came back and I’ve been here since. My nephew is still incarcerated, and I visit him, and we talk regularly. My mission and my purpose is to help young people to not make those decisions.
Anaridis Rodriguez: Can you speak to the transformation that happens when you give people the tools and the knowledge to think about how to take care of themselves and each other?
Lisa Pina-Warren: It’s helping you work on that skill set to be able to pause, to be mindful, to really think about the situation before you react on it.
There are so many people incarcerated, including my nephew, who wish they could turn back the hands of time and pause that moment that something happened and make a different decision. Their lives would be totally different.
To learn more, watch our story on Generation Rising:
This story is part of our Finding Hope Project. Finding Hope is generously sponsored by Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross & Blue Shield Association.
