Vic Mensa has turned rapper into an activist. The Chicago native has hopes to help young people in his hometown develop new skills while helping their communities.

According to NBC Chicago, street violence in Chicago has gained national attention recently. Over the past weekend is was reported that four people’s were dead and 56 others were wounded after shootings throughout the city. This year alone, there were over 250 homicides.

According to Essence, because of these homicide numbers, Mensa is now using his SaveMoneySaveLife organization make sure while school is out for the summer that 11,000 young people are learning how to help others by becoming street medics in order to effectively use first aid products.

“We train and equip first aid responders in Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods with first aid bags, and teach them how to not bleed out, how to stop blood flow from gunshot wounds,” Mensa said. This is incredibly useful to help those who may be severely injured have a better chance at life. Supplies like a first aid kit bc can be found in many places, but rarely do people know how to use them. Now, with more people trained to make use of them, many people’s lives can be helped.

He continued, “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.”