AQEELA SHERRILLS

spirit-centered organizer and activist

Aqeela Sherrills is a self-proclaimed spirit-centered organizer and activist, working to promote healing in communities of color and build community-based public safety strategies. He has been an inspired agent of change, collaboratively forging a historic peace treaty between the Bloods and Crips in Los Angeles, launching The Reverence Project to provide healing support to victims of trauma, and reimagining public safety strategy as a leader in the Newark Community Street Team. Informed by his own life experiences, Aqeela encourages others to “discover the gift in the wound.” He believes transformative social change happens when we build compassion and understanding into systems and communities.

In conversation with Aqeela, you can’t help but feel an infectious energy and healing spirit infused in everything he says. He holds an authentic presence that invites you into a meaningful conversation on the incredibly relevant and pressing issue of community public safety. “You can’t have public safety without the public. It’s the presence of well-being. It’s not just about the absence of violence, it’s about the presence of safety,” he explained.

euphrates Call with Aqeela: reimagining public safety, transforming community, and sustaining peace

On December 11, 2020 Euphrates hosted an inspired conversation between Founder Janessa Wilder and our 2020 Visionary, Aqeela Sherrills.

Click here to watch the call recording | Click here to read the transcript

from personal to global

Aqeela lives peace leadership in action. He engages personal, interpersonal, community, and global practices in his ongoing work. As Aqeela dives deep into the intense work of building compassion and understanding into systems and dismantling systemic racism, he allows himself to slow down for moments of meditation, healing work, and self-care Sundays. He nourishes interpersonal relationships through healing sessions and storytelling that lay the ground work for communities to reallocate budgets towards violence prevention and trauma services and to build local community-centric and led strategies for public safety. Aqeela passionately and courageously exemplifies the individual and collective work needed to cultivate and sustain peace in ourselves, our relationships, our communities, and our world, and he gracefully reminds us it is an ongoing practice.

GreenShirt.adapt.990.high.aqeela_sherrills.jpg — “the thread that runs through everything is coherence and presence.”

commitment to community

NEWARK COMMUNITY STREET TEAM

The Newark Community Street Team (NCST) was founded by Mayor Ras J. Baraka as the city’s community-based violence reduction strategy. The mayor called on Aqeela to be a leader in the community-based initiative and shape strategies. NCST draws upon an evidence-based, trauma informed approach to violence reduction. NCST envisions a public safety system that puts victims at the center of its public safety strategy and invests in healing services for the community and law enforcement partners. Safety is not just the absence of violence but the presence of well-being and systems that support the most vulnerable amongst us. “There is a point of entry for the public to play a key role in public safety,” shares Aqeela, and it is time to truly reimagine systems of public safety.

THE REVERENCE PROJECT

On January 10, 2004, Aqeela’s 18 year old son Terrell, home from studying theater arts in college, was shot and killed. Determined that Terrell’s death not be in vain, Aqeela launched The Reverence Project (TRP) to develop comprehensive wellness centers in urban war zones in order to introduce those who suffer from high levels of trauma to alternative healing technologies to support individuals on their healing journeys. The Reverence Project is a local organization with a global agenda. As a peace movement, The Reverence Project is focused on shifting worldwide imagination by instituting a practice of authentic exploration of the wounds in the personal life as a means of accessing the gift of who we are.

deep wisdom, spirit, and heart

With the deep wisdom that comes from a history of personal transformation, Aqeela believes one can find the gift in tragedy, and we need to “sit with and hear the pain of our wounds to allow the gift to manifest itself.” Aqeela shares, “every obstacle is an opportunity to deepen relationships and understand the circumstances that brought one to a particular place. We are not our experiences. The harm we do and things we experience do not define us or who we are, they just inform who we are becoming.” Aqeela’s deep vulnerability, heart, and spirit exemplify how we can truly listen, be present, and act to heal ourselves, our relationships, and our communities.

Through his expansive work on child sexual abuse (CSA), community public safety, gang truces, and more, Aqeela demonstrates that peacebuilding intersects all we do – no matter our area of work, we can be peace leaders. Driven by the values of spirituality, Ubuntu, and agape, and fortified with the belief in the divinity of human beings, Aqeela is a collaborative peace leader and an inspiration of both hope and effort as we continue in the work of peace in all its forms.

“Every obstacle is an opportunity to deepen relationships and understand the circumstances that brought one to a particular place. We are not our experiences. The harm we do and things we experience do not define us or who we are, they just inform who we are becoming.”

— Aqeela Sherrills

call to action

We all have a responsibility to participate in community based public safety. Aqeela offers paths to support and engage in this work:

Aqeela shares, “when we expose our deep secrets and shames we give others permission to do the same, and we get an opportunity to empty.” On an individual level, spend time opening to vulnerability. Find someone you know, someone you don’t know, and allow yourself to be witnessed. When we allow our full selves to be present, to be seen, to be heard, we engage in our own personal healing. To contribute at interpersonal, community, and systems levels for change, we also must tend to the presence of peace and healing within ourselves.

Download and engage with the Citizen app if it exists in your community. Research and educate yourself on community based public safety initiatives in your own community or city to get involved. If one doesn’t exist, launch an initiative in your own community.
Join advocacy groups in your respective community or city. Learn about your local offices dedicated to public safety. Advocate to shift funds towards community based organizations.
Invest. When we choose peace, we must invest in peace. Contribute to local organizations actualizing these community based public safety strategies and practices.