Five teens graduate from Project Inspire, its seventh class

This past fall, the seventh class of Project Inspire was introduced to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of “golden joinery.” The five teens were given pottery bowls and instructed to break them into pieces. They were then directed to put the bowls back together using gold-dusted lacquer.

What resulted were beautiful new bowls laced with shiny gold streaks. The bowls were on display at the fall graduation ceremony for Project Inspire on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at the Strada Patient Care Center.

Project Inspire co-founder Ashley Williams Hogue, M.D., drew parallels between the artwork and the journeys of the teens in the award-winning injury prevention program based at USA Health University Hospital. “The whole purpose is that you can be broken, you can be down and out, you can be on your last leg, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t be put back together whole, and put back together beautifully,” said Williams Hogue, who also directs the USA Health Center for Healthy Communities.

Since 2018, Project Inspire has served the community with a program that utilizes a robust curriculum to provide education, exposure and new experiences for select teens in the juvenile justice system. The curriculum is administered over the course of a semester and includes trauma-informed training and confidence building, educational and professional development, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and mentorship.

University Hospital’s Fanny Meisler Trauma Center provides the space for students to explore the health system, but many activities take place in the community highlighting all that Mobile has to offer. During the program, students engage with a diverse group of caring adults that provide a variety of experiences including cooking classes, local college tours, conversations with local entrepreneurs, resumé creation and practice job interviews, Stop the Bleed and Basic Life Support training, suturing and laparoscopic surgery labs, community service projects, and more.

One activity called for each participant to answer thoughtful questions and use photos to illustrate their responses, all of which were incorporated into banners. “We asked several different questions, such as ‘What makes you feel important?’ and ‘How do you see that you can change or overcome circumstances in your community?’’ said Daphney Portis, MPA, Project Inspire program coordinator. “It was a really great way to see everyone’s thoughts and their opinions.”

This past summer, some recent graduates traveled to Washington, D.C., where they visited the White House and met with the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Project Inspire co-founder and mentor Antwan J. Hogue, M.D., an internal medicine physician at USA Health and medical director of the Johnson Haynes Jr. Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, addressed the teens who gathered with family members and mentors at the graduation ceremony. “I’m really proud of you guys,” Hogue said. “Your chance of staying out of trouble by just completing this program has gone up substantially.”

The Rev. Lloyd Michael Austin, a Vets Recover peer support specialist and Project Inspire mentor, encouraged the teens to stay in contact with the new adults in their lives. “Even after this night is over, we are here for you,” he said. “You have someone to lean on, someone to talk to.”

He urged the graduates to “pay it forward” by helping other youth who are impacted by gun violence. “Comfort others and tell them there’s another way,” Austin said.