Let Them Talk fosters safe spaces amid uptick in city's youth violence

“Mr. Daniel, it’s overwhelming.”

That’s what one student told Daniel Mills, whom he met through the youth empowerment program Let Them Talk. The student had just spent another day struggling to focus in school. His grades weren’t good and every mistake he made in class felt magnified.

“I said, ‘Okay, let’s figure this out. What’s overwhelming you, and how can we chip away at it? How do we eat the elephant? One bite at a time, and it becomes manageable,’” Mills recalled.

That steady, practical and personal approach is the heart of Let Them Talk, a grassroots nonprofit founded in 2020 to lift up? Indianapolis’ Black youth ages 12 to 17 and give them a voice.

Mills, a program specialist at the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis, co-founded the group alongside Heather Savage, a social worker wit