Community leaders are holding solution-based conversations with youth this week on issues including gun violence.
As part of Youth Victory over Violence Week, speakers are visiting Milwaukee Excellence Charter Middle and High School.
The sessions each morning cover mental health, gun violence, sexual violence, bullying, and cyberbullying.
"It not only starts with us but we have the power to change it because we're the next generation," said Laterrian Stewart, a junior who wants to graduate and join the military.
Stewart and his classmates said they're learning they have to help reverse the trend of many of their peers glorifying guns on social media.
"Main thing we talked about today was social media and just the violence and the posting [on social platforms]," said Samuel Cahn-Blackman, another junior who wants to become a film producer.
"Just ignore it. Don't engage in it," said Cahn-Blackman.
According to Milwaukee Police, this year, six people 17 years old or younger were killed in firearm-related homicides and 33 have been shot and survived.
During one morning session with MPD, almost every student among dozens raised their hands to indicate their lives have been impacted by gun violence.
"I was extremely surprised by that," said Milwaukee Police Officer Ndiva Malafa. "That just shows the magnitude of gun violence in our city, especially with our youth victims."
Speakers, like Malafa, hope these conversations save the lives of students.
Just last month, Milwaukee Excellence Charter Middle and High School student Davion Patterson was shot and killed. He was just 15 years old. His family said he was trying to break up a fight.
His schoolmates, who remember him, said it's scary to realize something similar could happen to them.
"It's kind of frustrating," said Stewart. "It's hard to get people to listen that don't have the maturity and the realization how it could affect them or somebody else."
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