We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project

Organization Mission: We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project (WAB2G) connects and heals women and girls affected by homicide and incarceration to prevent the cycles of violence and victimization.

We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project (WAB2G) was founded by Ruth Rollins in 2017, after the murder of her son, Danny Hairston, and the incarceration of her second son. Although there were services available for homicide victim families (survivors), they weren’t any available to mothers who have lost loved ones to incarceration. Ruth's own experience of loss and grief; she realized while there were services available for families impacted by gun violence, they were focused on the surviving family members after a homicide. As the mother of an incarcerated son and a son who died by homicide, she didn't have a place to talk openly about her son who was incarcerated. Ruth found her voice and founded WAB2G to honor her son's legacy and engage and empower mothers on both sides of gun violence in the peacemaking process. Her insight and vision are the foundation of WAB2G’s work and community service as a model of Accountability, Advocacy, Compassion, Transformational Healing, Prevention and Resilience to bring together families on both sides of homicide and incarceration and foster healing and unity in the community.

 Our leadership is a cohort of women who have personally experienced the trauma of neighborhood violence and lack of trauma response and other mental health resources readily available. We see that existing mental healthcare and criminal justice systems keep Black families divided. WAB2G was founded to counter the social determinants of health and the health disparities embedded in our neighborhoods of color, in particular the paucity of culturally competent emotional and mental health support and services.

We work with women and youth of color impacted by homicide and incarceration that are disproportionately impacted by community violence, lack of appropriate mental health services and the entire (negative) sequelae of the extant criminal justice system. These are women (mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters) whose relatives are 1) survivors of violence; 2) cause harm to the community; 3) incarcerated; and/or 4) persons who are about to re-enter the community from incarceration.  As an organization WAB2G is led by those with both lived experience and decades of professional expertise in addressing the root causes of homicide and incarceration. As agents of change we work to change the narrative and interrupt intergenerational cycles of trauma caused by multiple forms of violence in our homes and communities.