Vic Mensa wants to be known as an activist as well as an artist.
He recently stirred the pot with the release of his politically charged visuals for “Camp America” which portrays the harsh conditions that immigrant children, women, and men are facing in ICE detention centers. The Chicago native is now refocusing his attention to his hometown.
According to Essence, Mensa is using his SaveMoneySaveLife organization to help train 11,000 young people to be street medics.
“We train and equip first aid responders in Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, and teach them how to not bleed out, how to stop blood flow from gunshot wounds,” Mensa said. He shared that he developed the idea for the program after traveling abroad. “I was in the occupied West Bank in Palestine and I met a young man from Gaza who was from an organization called Build Palestine. [They] had a similar program where they trained 35 first aid responders, I think it was in Gaza…their ambulance situation and first response situation is actually a lot like Chicago. Like the ambulances take a long time, might not come, might not be anywhere good to get treated, and it’s a war zone.”
