Film and Panel Discussion: "Don't Give Up On Me: Interrupting Urban Violence and Poverty"

The documentary "The Interrupters" will be shown at Wheaton College.

Film director Steve James and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz created the documentary by following the lives of three community activists fighting to interrupt the violence haunting the city of Chicago.

Eddie Bocanegra, one of the community activists featured in the documentary and Dr. Bradley Stolbach, a nationally renowned trauma expert, will be joined by a panel of individuals from community-based organizations and churches from the south side of Chicago in a discussion following the film.

Bocanegra is a congregational organizer for the Community Renewal Society. Haunted by a murder he committed when he was 18 he is now using the experiences from his past to stop gang violence by working with CeaseFire, a Chicago violence prevention program. As one of CeaseFire's Violence Interrupters, Bocanegra leverages his knowledge of the city to diffuse tensions and promote peaceful reactions to violence.

Dr. Stolbach is the program director of the Chicago Child Trauma Center at La Rabida Children's Hospital and associate professor of Clinical Pediatrics at The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Free and open to the public, this event takes place in Barrows Auditorium, located in the east wing of the Billy Graham Center at 500 College Avenue in Wheaton. This event is co-sponsored by Wheaton College's Graduate Psychology Diversity and Justice Committee, the Psychology Department, Sociology/Anthropology Department, Urban Studies Department, Urban Studies Student Group, Student Government Community Diversity Committee, Humanitarian Disaster Institute (HDI), and Outreach Community Ministries at Wheaton College.