Baltimore, MD (June 13, 2008) – Mayor Sheila Dixon joined the Baltimore City Health Department’s Office of Youth Violence Prevention to announce the City’s first Safe Streets Weekend. The goal is to inform the city about public health efforts to reduce gun violence.

Safe Streets is based on the effective CeaseFire Chicago model developed at the University of Illinois School of Public Health. Safe Streets works with community-based organizations to develop and implement strategies to reduce and prevent violence, particularly shootings and killings. The model relies on outreach workers, faith leaders, and other community leaders to intervene in conflicts, or potential conflicts, to and promote alternatives to violence.

Safe Streets is currently being implemented by the Living Classrooms Foundation in the McElderry Park and Ellwood Park communities of East Baltimore, and by Communities Organized to Improve Live (C.O.I.L.) in the Union Square community of Southwest Baltimore. Coordinators are active in these communities, bringing mediation, educational and employment services to at-risk individuals. In the past year, over 50 outreach events have taken place, and as a result, the number of shootings and homicides has dropped.

“Safe Streets is a public health effort to reduce shootings and killings,” said Mayor Dixon. “This effort demonstrates that everyone has a role to play in making Baltimore safer.”