From despair to hope

Brian Vargo left an indelible mark with University of Hope at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility

By: Rachel Cavanaugh  

Published: in the Woodburn Independent,1/5/2010

Brian Vargo may have left MacLaren with just a box in his arms, but he now has hope, something he didn’t have when he entered the facility over six years earlier.Vargo says when people arrive at MacLaren they must have a sense of hope each day and that, in part, is what helped him start University of Hope.

When Brian Vargo walked out of MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility last November, the scene was different from when he walked in there six years ago.
 
Aside from a small box of books, he was carrying something with him that had been missing when he entered six years ago: hope.
 
Vargo said that feeling is an indispensable part of criminal rehabilitation, and inside the judicial system, it’s important to make sure people don’t become numbers.
 
“When you say things like ‘humanity’ and ‘people’ and ‘mankind,’ they’re not just abstractions that you read about in philosophy books,” the 21-year-old said. “They’re individuals: adults, children, teenagers, juvenile delinquents, church elders — everyone.”
 
Each person must have a sense of hope in order to move forward each day, he said. For the young men inside MacLaren, art, music and poetry are some of the things that give them purpose.
 
Before Vargo left in November, he made it one of his goals to set up a program that would bring some of that hope to the young men inside. He worked with minority services director Ron Weaver, and two friends and fellow offenders, Tyson and Jabron, to get it off the ground. The group called it, “University of Hope.”
 
It works like any other university in the sense that youth must apply to get admitted.
 
Acceptance is based on behavior, grades and staff recommendations. Once part of the program, they have the choice of participating in various artistic groups.
 
Vargo said the idea is to help the young men change by focusing on their role as human beings, rather than criminals.
 
“(The mission) is to view people as being good, as having potential, as having hope,” Vargo said.
 
“Because otherwise, what purpose is there to our actions — to even living life if there’s no hope for people?
 
“Everybody has the capacity to change. I know that personally from my experience — I see it. I’ve seen it in Tyson and Jabron and dozens of other guys that come through here. I see it in everyone. The capacity to change is part of being human.”
 
The project is still in its fledgling stage but has debuted with a group that does krumping, a Christian-based street dance. Vargo is working with a local film school on a documentary about the dance group.
 
There is talk of introducing a poetry unit, to be taught by Superintendent Mike Riggan, as well as a course that would read or perform plays. The program has also received interest from Soul P, a local Christian rapper, who has said he would like to get involved.
 
The university concept began last July during a leadership session the three young men are part of. Weaver oversees the group.
 
“We were having a conversation about what really helps people change,” recalled Weaver, who comes from a rough background himself.
 
He said for him it was basketball and sports that helped him transition. The young men pointed to various artistic endeavors or passions they had been involved with. The foursome determined the common factor was internal motivation, rather than external.
 
“It wasn’t somebody dictating or telling me that I need to do it, it was something I valued, so I was much more responsive,” said Weaver, looking back on his youth.
 
Many of the young men inside MacLaren don’t have family to offer positive guidance, he added, noting that nobody chooses their parents.
 
“For a lot of these youth, it’s not rehabilitation — it’s habilitation. They’re being taught for the first time how to socialize appropriately and how to be pro-social and not be reactive and not get into situations,” Weaver said.
 
Vargo agreed, adding that having a sense of purpose can help.
 
“My friends and I have found that art is what works for us,” Vargo said. “Art motivates us and … helps us change our mindset from one that says, ‘I’m a criminal,’ to one that says, ‘I am an artist. I am productive, positive, able, capable. … This is really the first step in University of Hope.”
 
In the course of planning for the project, Vargo did extensive research on similar programs, which included communication with a head sociologist at Harvard University.
 
Much of his motivation, he said, comes from reflecting back on his own personal experience.
 
When he arrived at MacLaren at age 15, for instance, he said he was angry at “everything it’s possible to be angry at.”
 
He’d been shuffled through the foster care system and didn’t really know his biological parents.
 
When he showed up at the correctional facility on a Measure 11 charge, he was overwhelmed by abandonment issues and didn’t feel any purpose in life.
 
In the years that followed, however, a transformation took place.
 
“When you get put in a cell by yourself and it’s just you and a little window and a sink and a toilet, and four walls around you, you have a lot of time to think about who you are, how you’ve lived your life, what you want for yourself,” he recalled.
 
Vargo referenced a famous quote about loneliness, saying it can be “destiny’s way of leading man to himself.”
 
As time went on, he worked closely with Weaver and eventually emerged with a new outlook.
 
Part of the process that MacLaren staff uses is to look at the choices the offenders made and try to figure out what led them there.
 
From there, staff can decide the best way to move forward.
 
Weaver said he chooses not to find out what crime(s) the youths committed until they tell him, even though he has access to the information. It is because he wants to approach them without judgment, he said.
 
“I don’t need to know your background. … I want to see who you are today,” Weaver said.
 
After the course of several interviews, Vargo, too, chose to remain silent about what charges brought him to MacLaren.
 
However, as he exited the facility Nov. 5, they seemed, in some ways, a distant memory.
 
Vargo’s focus appeared to be on the future — his hopes, his dreams and the life waiting for him outside. As he gathered boxes, he talked about his upcoming krumping documentary, plans for college, community service work and continued help with University of Hope.
 
“We have to believe, in order to live life with purpose, that there is hope for every single person,” he said. “Even the most obnoxious, the angriest, the sickest … the person who does the things that make society say, ‘He’s a delinquent, he’s incorrigible.’ Those people, especially, we have to have hope in.”

http://www.woodburnindependent.com/news/2010/January/05/Local.News/from.despair.to.hope/news.aspx