Chicago kids find a safe haven amid violence

Like most boys in his neighborhood, 14-year-old Fabyan Holloway likes to play basketball with his friends. But where he lives, in South Austin, one of Chicago’s deadliest neighborhoods, playing outside can be dangerous.

“There was a shooting right in front of my house,” Holloway said. “A car got hit, and somebody was chasing somebody, and they had a guy shot.”

He’d learned from losing people close to him that it was better to just hole up inside when things got really bad outside.

When he was about seven years old, three of Holloway’s cousins were shot. Two died.

“As I’m growing, I’m experiencing more and I’m learning what to do, what not to do, where to be and where not to be,” he said.

He feels safest during the few hours on weekdays when he goes to Kidz Express, an after-school program that serves about 70 young people a day in South Austin. But programs that provide safe haven in the most dangerous and under-resourced parts of Chicago are few and far between.

In the following videos Fault Lines correspondent Anjali Kamat sits down with Holloway and others who attend Kidz Express to talk about what it’s like to grow up in one of America’s most violent communities.