In recent months, there has been a trend around the country of young people taking matters into their own hands. Most notably, the students of Parkland, Florida, led the charge for harsher gun laws and students from around the country joined in solidarity for the March For Our Lives rally.

Similarly, in Baltimore, students are looking for platforms to express how the state of the country and the city have affected their lives. Mayor Catherine Pugh and her team at CharmTV—the city’s news station that launched in 2014—came up with the idea for a television program featuring Baltimore youth. 

The Avenue will be solely run and operated by Baltimore City high school students under the direction of CharmTV’s general manager Tonia Lee and will debut on April 21 at 11 a.m. The 30-minute show will discuss topics chosen by students, including violence in Baltimore, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, as well as lighter topics like fashion and entertainment.

“There was clearly a void of platforms for young people to talk about what’s going on in the world,” Lee said. “We really felt like bringing this type of concept, particularly to Baltimore, was a tremendous way to further engagement and allow young people in this city to really express their views.”

The program will feature in-studio interviews, news packages, and roundtable discussions. It will air on Saturdays at 11 a.m. and will re-air on Saturdays at 2 p.m. and Mondays and Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

Run by six students with two of them hosting and the other four splitting various production roles, the show put students through auditions and casting calls in order to be selected. Lee says that this is considered work-study and the plan is to recast the students each year to open up the opportunity to other young people in the city who have an interest in broadcast journalism. In addition to discussing relevant news topics, the students will also be trained in all aspects in media production, pre-production, writing, shooting, and, editing.

“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to engage our young people in the city,” Lee said. “We can not only reach young people, but also provide them with skills that they could viably use moving forward in their careers.”

Baltimore School for the Arts senior Kyla Jackson and Kamari James, a senior at the Seed School of Maryland, are The Avenue’s current hosts. Jackson, who will be studying broadcast journalism in the fall at Drexel University, says she’s excited to have the opportunity to share her views with not just other youth, but everyone in Baltimore. 

“This type of programming is important because we really need to have something for the youth to share their opinions,” she said. “We are going to talk about a lot of things that people wouldn’t expect. We always hear about people dying, but we want to talk about the survivors in the city.” 

An aspiring filmmaker, James loves that the entire show is youth-led and says the show has taught him about accountability. He’s proud of the work that he and his fellow production team have developed.

“We’re all bringing fresh ideas to the table,” he said. “We’ve all heard about the different conflicts in Baltimore told from an adult’s perspective, but it’s not really heard from youth, the people who are going through it the most.”

When Tina Giles Forrester spoke with her husband Jim Forrester on December 18, 2017, she didn’t know that it would be the last time she would hear his voice. Just outside the Baltimore Tattoo Museum, where he worked as a body piercer, two men approached him while he was on the phone, shot him, and ran off. Through the phone, that was now laying on the sidewalk, Tina heard everything—people yelling, sirens, and first responders saying that her husband was gone.

“I heard them say, ‘We got nothing,’” she said. “I know what that means.”

Instead of letting her grief consume her, Tina decided to use it as fuel. City Councilman Zeke Cohen reached out to see what he could do to help her with her plan to help the at-risk youth in Baltimore. 

“I sat down in his office and went off like a rocket,” she said. “He just sat there and listened to everything I had to say. Afterward, he told me he had someone I needed to meet.”

That someone turned out to be Victory Christine Swift whose son, Victorious Swift, was killed on March 26, 2017 just weeks before graduating from the Baltimore Design School. Mama Victory, as she’s affectionately known, developed Our Victorious City, an organization dedicated to continuing her son’s work in the community. Although something so tragic brought the two women together, they shared the same determination to prevent someone else from feeling their pain.

“Victorious loved Baltimore,” Victory said. “He loved his school, and he loved helping others. We created Our Victorious City out of that same energy and his commitment to serving others. We just want to help young people in Baltimore to have a better future.”

Joined by Cohen, the two women came up with the Swift and Forrester Scholarship Fund to honor the legacy of both Jim and Victorious with the hopes of ending violence and providing an opportunity for the next generation of children in Baltimore to thrive. 

The memorial fund will be split across three different scholarships. Through Our Victorious City, there will be a scholarship awarded to families of homicide victims. In order to memorialize Victorious’ commitment to community service, a graduating student from the Baltimore Design School will be awarded a scholarship to pursue higher education. The last scholarship is for a Baltimore City Public School student who wants to pursue a degree in music to honor Jim’s legacy and love of music. 

These scholarships are not for any typical student. Although logistics are still being worked out, the pair want to target the youth in the city who are “typically forgotten about.”

“I wanted to find a way to provide an opportunity to kids who are completely off track,” Tina said. “I don’t want to give this to kids who are already on the right path, there are already programs out there for kids like that.”

Currently, Tina and Victory are raising funds for the scholarship programs through a GoFundMe page. To date, the campaign has raised more than $3,600 towards the $10,000 goal. Tina says that every little bit helps, and they are grateful for the support they have received thus far.

“Sometimes in life, we are either born into situations or we put ourselves in these situations where we feel like there’s no turning back,” she said. “We want to eliminate that for as many people as possible. We know that if someone was there to help the troubled youth, Jim and Victorious would still be here. If you can affect one kid, it will multiply.”