For me, being born and raised in the Brownsville and East New York sections of Brooklyn, moving to the Cambria Heights section of Queens, was literally a breath of fresh air. It is very quiet, the houses are beautiful, there are no toxic smells, and I am even able to see the stars at night. I didn’t think I would have been able to find anything wrong with this neighborhood until I did this report.
While walking around during the day, I passed by Linden Boulevard, which is the main avenue of Cambria Heights, and noticed that there is graffiti on the stores that I never saw before. To my surprise, the graffiti actually represented known gang signs. I also saw young males early in the day hanging out on the street corners and in front of stores early when they should be in school. On another day, witness cops who came up to these groups of young men and frisked them. I didn’t stay around long to see if anyone was actually arrested.
There is also a high school in my neighborhood which I noticed a few teenage moms. Although there may be a low number of teenage pregnancies in this school, it doesn’t negate that there is a problem that shouldn’t be addressed. With teenage pregnancies comes the possibility of STDs and infections.
There are a number of things a community nurse can do to help the problems in my community. They can address the first problem of young males being in the gangs by handing out pamphlets showing the statistics of young males in gangs that end up in the trauma unit of the hospitals. They can also distribute flyers of where free clinics are in the neighborhood which provides counseling and wellness services geared to the young adults. They can address the second problem of teen pregnancy by going to the school and giving a presentation on the prevention of teen pregnancy. They can also give pregnant teens a lesson about proper nutrition while being pregnant to combat low birth rates statistics and stress the importance of seeing a doctor as soon as they become aware that they are pregnant. For both gang members and teen pregnancy, the community nurse can stress the importance using protection to avoid transmitting STDs and if they believe they are infected, to seek treatment as soon as possible.
in many communities STDs and young pregnancies are a major issue. its sad that they still won’t stop, and keep up their unprotected sex life.
Handing out flyers about showing statistics of young males in gangs that end up in the ICU or emergency rooms, would not stop these young kids nowadays in joining up. Most join gangs to fit in, and others join for brotherhood and protection. Some are born into it and that’s the only thing they ever knew. Before they even joined, they already know what are expected of them and the consequences. Most change their ways when it’s too late, others remain until death of old age or death on the streets. Gangs cannot be stopped as long as there are recruiters and volunteers, and kids who are attracted at making that “easy money”, it’s a never ending process of making “soldiers”.
We can never say never about our teenagers, we have to try. They all may not listen but even if we save 1 young man from a life of crime or 1young girl from becoming a mother before she is ready we would have done our part as nurses. Its about caring,that’s what nurses are supposed to do. I can empathize with the writer because I moved from East Flatbush to Rosedale over a decade ago and I felt I was in heaven but today we have the same problem, loitering. What we need are programs to otherwise occupy their free time but funding is a big issue.
I think your suggestion of handing out pamphlets showing the statistics of trauma related to gang violence is excellent. It could act as a wake-up call to teens who are easily influenced by their peers. I also wrote about teen pregnancy and STD’s. Your thoughts on nutrition for pregnant teens and education on prenatal health are necessary to growth and development to their unborn children.
Well another alternative to giving the kids pamphlets is by bringing in a person who overcome the problem of being a gang member. There are different success stories that may touch the kids fragile mind and draw them away from gangs.
Places that are good also have their bad sides. Nothing can be to good to be true. I hope that you enjoy the good and ignore the bads
You touched on the young girls having babies. It is an epidemic more kids are raising kids in many different communities. They have to be made more aware of the many different dangers out there in the world and nurses can do that plan some good.