Student Spreads Message About Chicago Teen Violence |
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| Written by Valparaiso University Relations |
 Most students come to college hoping to find a direction, or possibly even a purpose in life. Some find it, while for others the quest continues for years. But Demetrius Amparan already knew his purpose when he arrived at Valparaiso University.Amparan grew up on Chicago’s South Side in the Morgan Park neighborhood and graduated from Morgan Park High School in 2008. At school, he kept himself focused on the positive, serving as student body vice president, a mentor for younger students and a member of the academic decathlon team. But outside his school, the violence was always present. “It was everywhere,” Amparan said. “School would get out in the middle of the afternoon, but I would stay until 6:45 p.m. or so just to avoid the dangers and problems that were waiting outside.” The violence was unimaginable and unrelenting, he said, describing how he faced the deaths of friends killed in gang warfare and witnessed countless others wounded in the conflict. “The beatings happened every day, but the deaths were even harder to deal with,” said Amparan, who lost a close friend during his senior year to the violence. “He was on his way out, moving to Minnesota to escape the cycle of violence, when he was gunned down in a gas station parking lot.” That extreme loss was more than enough to fuel a new passion in the then 17-year old, who teamed up with a friend to find a way to let the outside world see what they were living and feeling. Amparan and Nate Marshall, a graduate of Chicago’s Whitney Young Magnet High School, worked together to write a poem called “Lost Count: A Love Story.” The writing process continued during a two-week period in 2008, during which the death toll of Chicago public school students from violence rose from 17 to 42, which, Amparan said, turned their writing into an obsession, and the words flowed naturally. An excerpt from the lyrics reads, “And in the 14 days it took us to write this, we’ve had to add more names to this list. Because in this city, before we blossom, we must weather storms unforecast.” The duo took their poem to the stage with support from the Young Chicago Authors group, and after winning local and regional contests, became part of a six-person team to compete at the national level. In Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2008, Amparan and Marshall delivered their creative work on stage at the Brave New Voices youth poetry slam, where tears flowed not only in the audience, but from their eyes as well. “The feelings were so genuine when we were up there,” Amparan said. “This was never staged at all, it always came straight from the heart.” “Lost Count: A Love Story” was awarded third place in the national contest and can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVD-HsHoUNM. But the contest was just the beginning of what has become a personal mission for Amparan. Now in his second year at Valpo, he is pursuing a major in sociology, and is working on a research project which will allow him to gain insight into the core of the problem that plagues so many of Chicago’s teenagers. “You have to get into the minds of not only the teenagers, the students themselves,” Amparan said, “but you also have to get into the minds and thoughts of the parents, to find out what they think the problem is,” Amparan said. His project includes a survey of the students and parents who live in selected South Side neighborhoods, and visits to eight public high schools to talk to students and parents. The survey results, Amparan said, will then be tabulated and turned into a report which he plans to take to various aldermen and other city leaders, with hopes of forging change. His post-Valpo plans are not yet set in stone, but are beginning to come into focus. Amparan is hoping to supplement his degree with elements of public speaking, to create a “performance sociology” degree to use as a foundation to spread his message about the violence that is still killing friends in his former neighborhood and beyond. “I hope to use my writing and public speaking skills, combined with my new knowledge of sociology, to help people in the type of situation I grew up in,” Amperan said. 
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