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A conversation with Sokoto House's Abdul Hafeedh Bin Abdullah about community safety

On this episode, WHQR's Ben Schachtman sat down with Abdul Hafeedh Bin Abdullah, co-founder of Sokoto House and the Quality Life Blueprint, to talk about how he sees the issue of community safety through a public-safety lens, and where some other efforts — like Tru Colors and Port City United — may have fallen short.

On today’s show, we’re continuing our conversations about community safety. It’s a pressing issue in the Cape Fear Region — it’s also one of the four key pillars of the New Hanover Community Endowment. The Endowment still hasn’t hired a dedicated network officer to help convene non-profits and public figures on the issue – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of people invested in the issue. This year, I’ll be sitting down with as many of those people as I can.

That definitely includes today’s guest, Abdul Hafeedh Bin Abdullah — or, as most people call him to keep it simple, Abdullah. He’s the founder and director of Sokoto House, and co-founder of Quality Life Blueprint, a community organization that takes a public health approach to violence — which understands the visceral violence of guns, crime, and drugs, in terms of the underlying systemic violence of inequality, trauma, and other factors.

Abdullah agreed to sit down to talk about his perspective on community violence in Wilmington, his approach to it, and where past efforts — like Tru Colors and Port City United — might have fallen short.

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Ben Schachtman is a journalist and editor with a focus on local government accountability. He began reporting for Port City Daily in the Wilmington area in 2016 and took over as managing editor there in 2018. He’s a graduate of Rutgers College and later received his MA from NYU and his PhD from SUNY-Stony Brook, both in English Literature. He loves spending time with his wife and playing rock'n'roll very loudly. You can reach him at BSchachtman@whqr.org and find him on Twitter @Ben_Schachtman.