Ryane Nickens.Photo: Nate Palmer
Ryane Nickens was 12 when she lost her first relative to gun violence.
The victim in that 1989 shooting was her 20-year-old uncle, David Williams. Then, in 1993, a shooting in Nickens' Southeast Washington, D.C., neighborhood killed her pregnant sister Tracy, 18, and injured her mother, Linda Bunn, as well as Ryane’s sister Dee Dee and her brother Ronnie.
“The pain was so deep for her,” Bunn says of Ryane. “Because I was in my own pain, I didn’t know this was going on until her friend told me that she tried to commit suicide.”
It’s a feeling that she fought hard against — and now helps dozens to do the same.
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From left, Ryane Nickens' uncle David Williams, brother Ronnie and sister Dee Dee, all lost to gun violence.Courtesy Ryane B. Nickens
“These are children who have, through no fault of their own, been dealt a damaged hand,” says pediatrician and TraRon board member Dr. Khandra Tyler-Beynum, chief of Health Services Administration for the District of Columbia’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Ryane, she says, “endeavored to really turn sadness and loss into something that was beautiful and beneficial for families. It’s a beacon of light.”
Says Ryane, 42: “For so long I’ve only known how to survive. I don’t want that for the kids. I want them to know what it’s like to thrive.”
One of those kids turning the corner is 13-year-old Samiyah Coates, whose best friend was fatally shot in Maryland last year. She credits the center and Ryane for providing much-needed comfort. An art therapist at the center encouraged Samiyah to create a box to keep photos and written memories of her friend — and to pull them out whenever she missed him.
“Miss Ryane is always looking out for us, and she makes sure that we’re okay,” says Samiyah. “It inspires me because I can do good, and I won’t have to be sad all the time.”
It’s a change Ryane is still working on in herself.
source: people.com
