Miles Mulrain
LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD
Miles Mulrain has an instinctual understanding of how to bring a community together. With his first organization, Black Orlando United, he hosted cookouts and back-to-school giveaways to unify people, with an increasing focus on working together to end police violence.
Then, in 2015, a close friend of his was killed in a drive-by shooting. Miles decided to push the mission of his work even further. "I realized that we couldn't just focus on police brutality—we had to focus on all community violence," he says.
Soon after, Miles planned a series of community forums on violence and renamed the organization Let Your Voice Be Heard (LYVBH). Over 200 people attended their first event. "We asked people what they saw going on. When they named problems, we'd take them down and come up with solutions," Miles says.
These solutions included everything from starting after-school programs for youth to working with students to end violence in schools to mentoring young people in juvenile detention centers. Eventually, LYVBH became the go-to organization for community members when problems came up, including murder and other violence. In addition to direct service, the group still holds rallies to raise awareness and hold local leadership accountable.
EJUSA began working with Miles in 2017 to support the organization's expansion and has since helped to secure $20,000 in seed funding. As LYVBH continues to create holistic approaches to reduce violence and support survivors, the group is also working to get to the root of police-community tensions. LYVBH's focus on ending police violence in Orlando led him to participate in EJUSA's Trauma to Trust training in 2019—an experience that Miles refers to as "groundbreaking," and one that he wants to replicate in Orlando.
"We're taking people who've been harmed by the system," says Miles, "helping them heal, and channeling their healing in order to change that system."
Miles is a member of the EJUSA Trauma and Healing Network and is highlighted as a part of EJUSA's report,
Healing Trauma, Changing Narratives: EJUSA's Grassroots Partners.