Foundation Fridays: Spotlighting the Dream Defenders' Healing & Justice Center in Miami
The center offers training in entrepreneurship to Miami’s youth, aiding in diverting kids from the streets and inspiring them to pursue their dreams.
MIAMI — The NBA Foundation announced its 11th round of grants last week, bringing the total threshold in grants distributed to over $100 million since its creation in 2020. The recent pool includes 46 grantees with a total of $8.66 million spread across a wide variety of groups.
Among that list is the Dream Defenders, a national organization based in Miami that aims to bring an end to the criminalization of Black and brown youth and build a world where, instead of police and incarceration, communities are given the basic resources they need to thrive.
Formed in 2012 after the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., the organization has been on the frontlines of organizing and building power within their communities across the state.
Over the last 10-plus years, the team in Miami has worked tirelessly to identify the key disparities in their neighborhoods, including but not limited to: housing, education, public transportation and health care. Without these basic resources, communities of color are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty, violence and incarceration.
As a result, the Dream Defenders launched The Healing and Justice Center, a coalition of community members, violence survivors, youth workers, artists, healers, healthcare providers and mental health professionals who are working to end gun violence and increase public safety, without incarceration and policing. The program was initiated by Dream Defenders in partnership with Circle of Brotherhood, Dade County Street Response and Touching Miami with Love.
“Our communities are starved of basic resources like healthcare, good jobs, after-school programs and housing,” Rachel Gilmer, director of the HJC explained. “That’s what keeps communities safe. Not more police.”
“The Healing and Justice Center is a community-based safety program focused on helping people heal. Violence is a cycle — hurt people, hurt people — and the HJC is focused on breaking this cycle. Healing is truly what public safety is all about, rather than what our system says public safety is: more police and more prisons.”
Gilmer, who has been part of the Dream Defenders since 2015, has witnessed Miami become a “ground zero” for some of the nation’s worst crises such as homelessness and police brutality, but feels grateful to work on this vital project alongside everyday people to develop new ways of thinking to keep the community safe in the wake of it all.
The HJC provides one-of-a-kind programs that specifically cater to the Miami community including crisis response, mentorship, violence intervention, mental healthcare, life-saving training, community walks and wellness checks in neighborhoods after shootings, as well as free counseling and case management to help survivors of violence.
Healing trauma through arts
Youth programming has been a key area of focus for the Dream Defenders through the HJC, serving all ages in the public school system. They recently developed an in-school violence prevention program based on social, and emotional learning and healthy relational behaviors. Led by Amal Rogers, a Somatic practitioner who also serves as the Healing Educator at the HJC, the six-week program uses theater and movement-based practices to talk about conflict and dream of a better world.
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Unlike other organizations she’s worked for in the past, Rogers says the Dream Defenders are committed to pouring into the youth in a long-term and disciplined way rather than creating an end product just to try to showcase a result.
“It’s often in this sort of exploitative way,” Rogers said of her previous experience before finding the HJC. “There’s money, but there’s no actual investment.
“That’s what’s so meaningful about the program at HJC where there are services connected with it and an acknowledgment of what people are experiencing.”
Vivian Azalia, Director of Youth Programs, works to provide a safe place for kids to get off the streets and participate in the arts alongside adults who want to help kids plan for their futures. Azalia joined the organization in 2013 after her best friend, Reefa Hernandez, was killed at the hands of the police and says she is deeply connected to HJC’s work.
“After my friend was killed, the Dream Defenders stepped in and supported me in so many ways. They gave me a place to channel my grief and a community to fight in honor of Reefa,” Azalia said. “I am a product of our work and it’s a beautiful thing to get to support more Miami youth in the same way.
“We are really pouring into young people and showing them there is another way to live aside from gun violence, aside from violence, aside from all the things they are seeing on a day-to-day basis.”
Implementing the grant at HJC
The Dream Defenders are a small but mighty team doing demanding work. The investment from the NBA Foundation ensures that the HJC can continue to offer high-quality services to underserved Black and brown youth throughout Miami.
The grant will directly fund the youth art programs for Black and brown people through the HJC.
“Oftentimes, in predominantly white communities, there is greater affluence, greater capital and quite frankly, more political power,” said Ruby Powell Dennis, Director of Development.
“The NBA Foundation serves children that look like mine. I have a 5- and a 7-year-old, and I’m so proud [to receive this grant] because in so many ways, the NBA’s players are my babies all grown up, and it’s just very full circle.”
More on Dream Defenders
The Dream Defenders became a national organization in 2023 after witnessing a movement of young people take to the streets in protest following the killing of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020.
Jonel Edwards, co-director of the organization, says she and her team recognized a gap between young movement energy that was happening organically and folks not having concrete organizational homes.
“As Dream Defenders, we fundamentally believe in organizing as the vehicle for change, rather than dispersed individuals taking action,” Edwards said.
You can learn more about the Healing and Justice Center here, and follow @HealingandJusticeCenter on Instagram here.
Learn more about the NBA Foundation here, and follow @NBAFoundation on Instagram and X.
