Adam Yoffie- SOL Intern

SOL student targets gun violence in South Africa

Adam Yoffie’s concerns about gun control have personal resonance. In April of 1999, when he was a sophomore in high school, two students killed thirteen of their classmates and then themselves during the siege at Columbine. Later that month, MSNBC held a national town meeting about school violence at Yoffie’s high school “because our demographics were the same as Columbine’s,” he recalls.

One year later, Yoffie traveled with his family from New Jersey to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Million Mom March. With his father, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, representing the sole religious voice for gun control, Adam was deeply moved by the stories he heard that day, the families whose lives had been torn apart by gun violence. (Rabbi Yoffie is president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the congregational arm of the Reform Jewish Movement in North America.)

By his senior year of high school Yoffie launched a nationwide fundraiser for gun control called T.A.G. (Teens Against Guns), and through the non-profit gun control organization PAX, he was able to raise hundreds of dollars while disseminating facts and statistics about gun violence. “Gun control in the United States is a sham,” says Yoffie. “The Constitution is taken out of context and misinterpreted. The second amendment applied to militias and not private citizens.”

As a rising junior at Duke last summer, Yoffie saw the issue of gun control through an international lens when, as part of his internship with the Hart Leadership Program’s Service Opportunities in Leadership (SOL), he worked with Gun Free South Africa (GFSA) in its Cape Town office. Gun Free had been launched in the wake of apartheid’s dissolution, and was spearheaded by such community leaders as Bishop Peter Storey, who now teaches at Duke’s University Divinity School.

Through GFSA, Yoffie worked closely with young South Africans on issues related to guns and gun ownership. His internship coincided with an opportune historical moment: the country’s new Firearms Control Act was put into effect July 1. The design and implementation of the law was the result of ten years of work by activists at Gun Free and other organizations to address the entrenched problem of gun violence. (South Africa has the second-highest incidence of gun violence in the world, second only to Colombia.)

Adam with his Gun Free South Africa co-worker June Esau.

“South Africa has a very bloody history and was on the verge of civil war ten years ago, says Yoffie. “People obtained weapons in the anti-apartheid struggle and those activists are weary of disarming, with the memory of systematic oppression fresh in their mind. Yet guns also provide impoverished men and women with a sense of power and dignity, something they have been denied for so long. Guns are part of everyone’s lives in South Africa. Sadly, gun control is less of a political issue and more of an everyday reality.”

With an interest in youth issues and oral history – Adam is a Robertson Scholar majoring in political science and pursuing a certificate in documentary studies – he collaborated with GFSA to devise a new youth initiative to address the soaring levels of homicide among young people. “Many of the nation’s youth, especially from areas of great poverty and high unemployment, have turned to crime and gangs,” Yoffie says. “Once at the forefront of anti-apartheid activism, the younger generation currently constitutes the largest percentage of victims of gun violence.”

Yoffie decided that the best way for him to help GFSA would be to utilize his research skills. The Hart Leadership Program’s increased emphasis on community-based research is part of a larger, university-wide initiative called Scholarship with a Civic Mission co-sponsored by the HLP and the Kenan Institute for Ethics. Now entering its third year, Scholarship with a Civic Mission consists of gateway courses, community-based research with community partners, and capstone courses.

Along with GFSA youth coordinator Thembani Dyule, Yoffie designed and conducted surveys that showed an overwhelming majority of young adults “want to make their schools gun free zones, wish there were no guns in the country, and believe they can help get guns off the street.” He helped design a pilot program to create a network of youth ambassadors – between three and five students from eight schools – who will then present workshops about gun violence and the Firearm Control Act to their peers. He also created a youth newsletter and networked with other organizations to get a broader perspective of the services available for youth.

In addition, Yoffie conducted oral history interviews with six local youth leaders, some of whom had been victims of gun violence themselves. One of them, a sixteen-year-old girl named Yandisa Mtambeka, articulated the obstacles groups like GFSA face when trying to thwart the spiral of youth-perpetrated violence. She talks matter-of-factly about men pointing guns at her and other young woman to coerce them into dating, and of police in her township who not only look the other way when murders take place, but who are seen drinking and socializing with known gang members.

Youth activist Yandisa Mtambeka (center) at a GFSA-sponsored rally in support of international arms destruction day. Photo by Adam Yoffie.

Titled “Ten Years Later: An Examination of the Current State of Youth Activism,” the oral history project includes audiotaped interviews, biographical information, photographs and speeches by the six youth. Yoffie plans to create a website to feature clips from the project, which is archived at GFSA’s Western Cape office and at the Centre for Popular Memory, part of the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town.

“My project was really twofold,” says Yoffie. “I ultimately wanted to find out how Gun Free South Africa can best engage youth in its mission to prevent gun violence. My oral history interviews provided valuable information for that aspect of the project but also served as the beginning of a new archive for Gun Free of the voices of youth activists in the New South Africa. Youth played a major role in South Africa during the anti-apartheid movements of the 1970s and 80s and many adults are waiting for another youth movement to rise and ameliorate the current problems plaguing society. Youth leadership and advocacy are very important ideals for all South Africans, especially the older generation.”

Yoffie was attracted to the Service Opportunities in Leadership program because of its design. Part of the Hart Leadership Program (HLP) in the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, SOL is a year-long program that combines coursework, experiential learning, critical reflection and mentoring. “I liked that SOL was comprehensive, that it lasted a year and was long-term. It’s hard to find that at Duke.”

Before embarking on his summer internship, Yoffie and his SOL classmates took a preparatory house course (which is in the process of being restructured as a full credit course) and engaged in two training sessions on research methods, led by Dr. Galen Wagner and Dr. Eric Eisenstein of the Duke Clinical Research Institute. In a supplemental workshop, representatives of Duke’s Institutional Review Board trained students about human subjects research and the IRB approval process.

In South Africa, Yoffie networked with other non-governmental organizations in the area, not only to learn what they were doing with youth but also to see if they were interested in collaborating with GFSA. He conducted a wide scale survey of young people to get firsthand information about how GFSA could best work with them. The bulk of his work formed the foundation for the organization's new three-year initiative to make inroads into the youth movement. The initiative also includes signatures and contact information of young people who signed a pledge promising they will not use guns; GFSA will tap into this network to create a core network of youth ambassadors who will take the initiative into their schools.

Schoolchildren speak out against guns at a rally Adam and his GFSA colleagues helped organize. Photo by Adam Yoffie.

Yoffie’s community-based research project, titled “iGUNiFLOP Feasibility Study,” evaluates the viability of the youth initiative he helped design. (With more than 11 different official languages in South Africa, Gun Free created the word iGUNiFLOP – meant to look like a South African dialect but actually a made-up word – to launch its youth initiative so as not to favor one language over another.)

“The greatest difference about this research is that it is not just my own private project,” Yoffie says. “Before this I had volunteered and organized community events but never really sought to produce a well-researched product for anyone besides a professor. This was no longer about a grade but about actually helping individuals in need.”

SOL students are required to write a series of critical reflections about their experiences. This writing exercise allows students to step back from the intense work of their internships and make sense out of the challenges they face. For example, Yoffie was convinced that GFSA needed a website to better communicate its mission and attract potential donors. But his director pointed out that the organization’s priority is developing and implementing the youth program and that the target audience – students, teachers and administrators – has little to no Internet access.

“I have to admit that after 20 years of studying in the U.S., I tend to see things from a more Western viewpoint,” Yoffie wrote this summer. “The problem is that such an ingrained mode of thinking sometimes prevents me from grasping the most pressing needs of the organization. This incident helped me realize that I am here to help Gun Free and must devote my time and energy to the tasks at hand – not what to I think is most important.”

Now enrolled in “Integrating Community and Classroom,” the SOL follow-up capstone course taught by HLP director Alma Blount, Yoffie and his classmates are incorporating what they learned over the summer with concepts of leadership, political engagement, and policy design. They are producing weekly point-of-view essays, engaging in vigorous discussions about current political topics, and completing a comprehensive research portfolio about a social issue related to the internship experience.

“The capstone course is different from any other Duke class I’ve taken because of how well we know each other,” he says. “Finding our respective voices is easy because we’ve known each other for so long that we’ve shed our barriers. And it’s great because it’s an up to date political class; we’re really dealing with current issues.”

Ask Yoffie what he thinks about Congress’ recent failure to renew the ban on assault weapons and he easily finds his voice. “The expiration of the assault weapons ban is an absolute disgrace to this country,” he says. “It is a perfect example of President Bush saying one thing and doing another. He may say he supports the ban but does nothing to actually get it passed. The vast majority of people in this country support strict gun control and yet their representatives have let them down. It is not only the Republicans who are to blame. They may pander to the NRA but Democrats appear to have lost the will to do anything about it. I do not understand what any rational citizen could want with an Uzi. I just hope it doesn't take another Columbine or Washington sniper to make people understand the absurdity of the situation. President Bush talks about protecting this country -- he is running on national security -- and yet has now made it easier for any terrorist to buy assault weapons. Not a single other developed country in the world has such lax restrictions on guns, let alone fully automatic assault weapons.”

Yoffie has also been an active student-citizen on other issues. He’s active in his fraternity, Sigma Nu, and has been involved with the Duke Democrats and Project BUILD. And he has stepped into a leadership role as president of Duke Friends of Israel, a five-year-old organization that earned its charter last year. Among the events the group is working on in 2004-2005 is alternative programming for the October weekend when Duke will host the Palestine Solidarity Movement annual conference.

“My SOL internship helped me see the different forms that leadership takes,” he reflects. “It’s not just about being outspoken and getting others involved in what you are doing. It’s also about conducting research, putting together a plan, getting community input, and seeing the plan through. Motivating people is the easy part.”

-- by Bridget Booher