News & Publications

• 'Not Even One' Program Seeks to Prevent Firearm Deaths Among Children
• President Carter's New Book Recounts His Living Faith
• Atlanta Project Increases Focus on Children and Families
• Great Lakes Crisis Continues in Africa

In 1990 alone, nearly 4,500 children in the United States under age 19 died from gunshot wounds. In 1994, The Carter Center founded Not Even One (NEO), a program that calls on faith communities, schools, families, local governments, and public health and social agencies to reduce firearm violence against children.

"The number of children injured or killed by guns every year is a national tragedy," said Wallace Woodard, newly appointed director of NEO. "Our program promotes the philosophy that 'not even one' death of a child by firearms is acceptable or inevitable."

Dr. Woodard has spent his career working to improve the lives of children. Before joining NEO, he worked on public safety issues for The Carter Center's Atlanta Project. He has taught elementary and college students and led training sessions on runaway and homeless youth, gang violence, and drug prevention.

"Protecting children must become the responsibility of every community," Dr. Woodard said. "In order for a program to work, people must be willing to listen. Citizen involvement must become the top priority in stopping this epidemic."

Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Task Force for Child Survival and Development, and the Emory University School of Public Health, NEO has developed the Community Action Team (CAT). CATs include community leaders and members of public health and police departments, schools, and social service agencies in high-risk areas.

Teams have been trained at demonstration sites in Compton and Long Beach, Calif., and Albuquerque, N.M. A third pilot is planned for Atlanta in 1997. NEO will evaluate their efforts to develop a prevention model for use nationwide.

"CAT members are being trained to gather and share information on possible causes of firearm violence that could lead to prevention strategies," Dr. Woodard explained. "They will use the same methods that public health professionals use to contain and prevent disease. Our hope is that those steps most likely to save our children will become habitual where they are most needed."

President Carter's New Book Recounts His Living Faith
"To me, faith is not just a noun but also a verb," writes former President Jimmy Carter in Living Faith (Times Books, 1996). In his latest book, dedicated to his wife, Rosalynn, President Carter describes how Christian faith sustained him through life passages such as his father's death, heated clashes with friends over racial segregation, and his painful defeat in the 1980 presidential election.

President Carter also shares how his and Mrs. Carter's beliefs contributed to their founding of The Carter Center in 1982. "Over the past 15 years, we at The Carter Center have adopted a number of principles for making and keeping peace within and between nations," he writes. "One of the most basic is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat." Living Faith is available at The Jimmy Carter Library and Museum and local bookstores.

Atlanta Project Expands Focus on Children and Families
Since The Carter Center launched The Atlanta Project (TAP) in 1991, Georgians have banded together to help the city's neediest residents rebuild their communities. In January, TAP began a new three-year phase by narrowing its focus to issues that touch the health and well-being of children and families. Specifically, TAP will focus on:

• increasing the percentage of high school students who graduate on time.
• enrolling more low-income students in Head Start or pre-kindergartenprograms.
• immunizing more children by age 2.
• increasing the number of welfare recipients leaving public assistance because of employment or higher incomes.

Four Cluster Centers, which will serve several neighborhoods, will support community initiatives by helping residents implement collaborative programs. During TAP's initial phase, residents in 20 communities called "clusters" worked with numerous partners to launch more than 400 projects. For example, in the Therrell Cluster, TAP residents and UPS, the cluster's corporate partner, worked with the YMCA, the Optimist Club, and the local Atlanta Police precinct to establish a program for families, youth, and children. The result is The Family Tree, a school-based resource center that provides academic and recreational programs for children and their families during and after school hours.

"TAP's first five years provided a legacy that must continue," said Jane Smith, TAP program director. "The learning process, which involved residents, nonprofit organizations, corporations, and academic institutions, has been a valuable foundation for making changes to improve the lives of children and families in Atlanta."

Great Lakes Crisis Continues in Africa
Last fall, most of the 1 million Rwandan refugees living in Zaire and Tanzania journeyed home. Tragically, their return was marred by violence reminiscent of the aftermath of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which caused the refugees to flee.

During the 1994 massacres, Hutu extremists killed 500,000 to 1 million people, mostly Tutsis. Shortly after the killings, the Tutsi-dominated Patriotic Front took over the Hutu government. Fearing for their lives, 1.7 million Hutus fled to Zaire, Tanzania, and Burundi where U.N. refugee camps were set up.

In October 1995, the presidents of Zaire, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda asked The Carter Center to help determine actions to bring peace and stability to Africa's Great Lakes region. At subsequent summits in Cairo and Tunis, the leaders pledged to take steps to defuse potential violence and expedite the refugees' return. But a new crisis emerged last fall.

"In eastern Zaire, refugees found themselves caught in the middle of battles between an emerging Zairian rebel movement, exile forces of Rwanda's former Hutu government, and the Zairian military," said Vincent Farley, Carter Center diplomat-in-residence. "This fighting weakened the control of the exile Hutu leaders, many of whom participated in the 1994 genocide, over the refugees."

As a result, refugees in Zairean camps near the Rwandan border left, and militants among the camp leaders moved deep into Zaire. The international community was debating in January how to help the remaining refugees and displaced citizens of eastern Zaire. At the same time, Tanzania closed its camps.

"The Great Lakes leaders need to renew their efforts to address the region's problems," said former President Jimmy Carter, who, with former Tanzania President Julius Nyerere, former Mali President Amadou Touré, and South Africa Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has facilitated discussions among the region's presidents. "The Carter Center remains in contact with them and ready to help."