Dorchester’s Peace Play initiative seeks to help people who’ve experienced violence

DORCHESTER — The violence plaguing Boston’s neighborhoods has impacted countless people.

And it has created trauma that can last for generations.

At First Parish in Dorchester, the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute is training people in a new program to cut through that trauma, so that people can heal.

In a church community room, huddled over trays of miniature houses and figures, the Louis D Brown Peace Institute is teaching people from all different walks of life, Peace Play, a new way to unlock the trauma caused by violence

Joseph Bennet will never forget what happened when his uncle was wrongly targeted in the Charles Stuart case.

He himself has spent decades in prison for a murder he says he did not commit.

Peace Play is helping him.

“I was 15 years old when this happened to my uncle, Willie Bennett,” Joseph Bennett told me. “I’m healing in ways that I wouldn’t even think I would heal and I’m forgiven in ways I never thought I would be forgiven.”

Each of the trays contains a self-made world, one that allows its maker to look at his own trauma in a different way.

“Because it’s world-building, you’re not focused on yourself, you’re focused on everything around you and then you get to think about things in different way,” Big Mike Mendes of Dorchester told me.

“Hurt people will hurt people and healed people will heal people, we believe this healing modality can l help you move towards a point where you are healing,” McCawley Bercy of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute said.

But the trauma is deep

Stephen Pina spent 28 years behind bars for a murder he says he did not commit.

“As long as I’m Commonwealth vs Stephen Pina, and I ‘m not exonerated, then I’m still a ward of the state,” Pina said.

Stephen Pina says Peace Play is helping him to keep his trauma from consuming him.

“It helps a person to be able to express, to work thru the trauma that they may not be able to understand what it is,” Pina said.

Already these practitioners are out in the community right now, with new skills to help our community cut through the trauma

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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