Having helped improve the attitudes of Niagara Falls students the past four years, Project W.I.T.T. is now looking to work with parents to help expand its welcoming environment at home.
Created by Reverend Eugene Coplin, the organization W.I.T.T. — Wisdom in Troubled Times — looks to teach kids how to treat others differently with their words. Its Speak Life Twice program goes into classrooms and has students give positive affirmations to themselves and others.
“Because their language has changed and they see themselves, our girls are queens, or guys are kings,” Coplin said. “We create an atmosphere where they are celebrated, not tolerated.”
Project W.I.T.T. has five volunteers who go through the Abate, Gaskill, Lafayette, Maple Avenue, and Cataract schools in the Niagara Falls district, and five for the Math Science Technology prep school in Buffalo. They go into the schools for three hours once a week during lunch periods, so that students do not miss any academic time.
Through the program, simply changing students’ language to be more positive, it has helped to bring those who may have been self-harming or suicidal out of those dark places.
“All our kids are hearing is negativity, complaining about this, complaining about that, constantly complaining when it comes to our classrooms,” Coplin said. “Many of them are hearing for the first time words of life. I can make it. I will make it.”
Coplin noted that getting the community involved with the sessions is important, having received complaints about the lack of parent involvement. The group has already started working with Buffalo parents at Mount Olive Baptist Church on Delevan Avenue.
“They’re understanding you got to watch what you’re saying to their child,” Coplin said.
Their sessions have even included teachers, principals, and other district staff as part of their professional development. Coplin said they have seen the same changes in attitudes in the staff members, the same way kids have changed.
One method they use, called the love seat, has someone sit in a chair and everyone else shares what they love about them, whatever it may be, finishing with a round of applause for everyone. When male teachers took part in the exercise, some would break down in tears afterward.
“I’d ask them why, and the answer is always the same,” Coplin said. “I never heard anyone tell me these words before. I didn’t know you felt this way about me.”
The program was also recently involved with a suicide prevention event in Sanborn, a Juneteenth celebration at the DoubleTree hotel in Niagara Falls, and was asked to come into Niagara Charter School in Wheatfield.
“It’s becoming a movement in Buffalo schools, but really here in Niagara Falls, we really want to proliferate it,” Coplin said.