The Hard Knox Gang Prevention and Intervention program helps current gang members, including kids and teenagers, change their lives.
The program has been in Pueblo for about ten years. Mark Salazar, founder and CEO of Hard Knox Gang Prevention and Intervention, tells 11 News that throughout this time, the organization has saved so many people.
Salazar was a former gang member who served time in prison. When Salazar was released, he committed his time to ensuring that others in similar situations did not make the same mistakes he had.
“I told a lot of my partners that I grew up with that when I got out I was going to go back to school, get my degree and go back to our old stomping grounds, which was right there originally on the east side, and start up my own nonprofit working with at risk youth,” said Salazar.
Salazar followed through on his word. After being freed from prison, Salazar returned to school and earned an Associates Degree, Addiction Specialist Certification, and Gang Specialist Certification. Hard Knox has also received Approved Treatment Provider (ATP) certification.
“We can eventually learn from our mistakes and grow from our misfortunes if we choose to,” Salazar tells 11 News.
Salazar is delivering various messages to program participants.
Salazar assists gang members who are on probation or have recently been released from jail with community service, job search, resume preparation, and education.
Salazar also gives therapeutic mentorship to youth members and helps them find jobs or extracurricular activities that they enjoy.
Salazar also employs a novel approach to assisting his program participants: he teaches them to play chess.
According to Salazar, the chess program at the Lucero Library on Pueblo’s east side serves a little over 300 children every month and teaches them valuable concepts.
“I teach them the similarities between the game of life and the game of chess and how they both go hand-in-hand,” Salazar tells 11 News.
“I’m a firm believer that the game of life is very much like the game of chess and they both require that you make the right moves to win.
“You’ve got to teach them at a very young age the importance of how the choices, and decisions you make at a very young age how they all impact you 30 years from now.
“I’m just simply trying to plant the seeds of new ways and new beliefs in their minds and just continuously water those seeds with knowledge in hopes that I can do my part to help shape and mold their mind and their way of thinking so that they flourish into the young men or women that they’re meant to be or at least close to it.”
Salazar also addressed another issue concerning others who are in the same situation as he was.
Salazar says, “There’s too many of them that are growing up, fatherless within our community you know coming from broken homes.
“The vast majority of the kids I work with are being raised by their grandparents and unfortunately the grandparents can’t keep up with them so we try to look out.
“We try to, aside from employment opportunities for them if they’re not interested in something like that, then we’ll ask them about recreational opportunities like what kind of things are they interested in are they interested in basketball, football, boxing.
“You know and we’ll work with other agencies within our community to try to make something like that happen by sponsoring them and get them involved in those programs so that way they have that opportunity to you know to discover their talents and their gifts so that they can build upon them.
“It’s on us to help you know turn to each other rather than on each other.
“You know, build each other up as opposed to tearing each other down.
“You know because there’s a lot of potential that a lot of them have, but far too often they’re reminded of their limitations as opposed to the potential that they possess and so we just have to be you know a positive role model for them.
“I have to try that much harder to school these youngsters and emphasize that street knowledge that they’re not going to learn in college.
“Just telling them the truth and the reality of what lies ahead if they want to continue down that path of destruction because I mean, as I mentioned a little earlier, I’ve been shot five times, I’ve been stabbed.
“I mean I’ve had numerous encounters with death, I’ve survived (Covid-19) on three different occasions you know to where I was on a ventilator for nine days the first time punctured my esophagus that’s why my voice sounds the way it is, but you know all of that you know I’ve learned from a lot of that.
“All I can do today is just be a better version than that that I was yesterday.”
As far as being a positive role model goes, Salazar also tells 11 News, “As a father, I have a responsibility and so if that requires resorting to flipping burgers for minimum wage, then so be it you know.
“But some people don’t think in terms of that they would much rather resort to making money the easy way, failing to realize that the easy way of making money comes with a heavy consequence.”
Another big message Salazar wants to get across to those who are in the same situation as he was is, “Just because you’re growing up in the gang culture does not mean that you’re destined to become another gangbanger or just another typical gang member.
“There’s other ways of you know representing your culture, your heritage, your community than just one.
“Because if you have love for your neighborhood as you claim, then you’re going to want to contribute to the betterment of that neighborhood, not the destruction.”
