In its 3rd annual community basketball game on July 30, We Not Opps is hoping to make a difference in the lives of youth all over Chicago. Operating out of the nonprofit Youth Outreach Services building at 1948 W. Carroll on the Near West Side, We Not Opps is a violence prevention and youth mentoring program committed to serving Cook County residents.
Specializing in conflict resolution and prevention, this community basketball game serves as an agent of peace, and will be a chance for members of the community to come together, including those from “opposite sides,” to work through their issues in a safe space.
Naji recalled a defining moment he shared with a fellow mentor in the program. At one point, both were in the same prison at the same time. Also, they were enemies.
“We actually were on opposite sides,” he said. It was when their deck was on the verge of a gang fight that the two came together to rectify the situation.
“We came together, and stopped it. A lot of them young guys, they saw it, and they remembered it,” Naji told The TRiiBE.
The community game will take place on July 30 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Breakthrough Family Plex, located at 3219 W. Carroll Ave in the East Garfield Park neighborhood. Besides basketball, the event will feature a DJ, and provide food and helpful resources for attendees.
In a phone interview, The TRiiBE recently spoke with the founder of We Not Opps, an Austin native who goes by the name Naji Islam.
In 1993, just two weeks away from his 18th birthday, Naji was arrested for murder. He spent his birthday in Cook County Jail and the next 25 years in prison. Released in 2008, Ublies has since dedicated his life to mentoring at-risk youth in Chicago.
He explained the thought process behind a youth outreach program under We Not Opps, called Path to Purpose.
“A lot of these young people, they don’t have a purpose. So we’re looking for their dream,” he told The TRiiBE. “I wanted to be an architect, but it never came through. But it feels like God put me in the place where I am an architect, rebuilding people’s lives.”
This July 30 event will be more than just a basketball game. Legal advisors will be present at the event, providing aid and helping with expungements, housing information. There also will be job placement professionals, and help for those who have loved ones to incarceration.
Naji told The TRiiBE it was after their first community game in 2022 that he decided to start the organization We Not Opps. He said the idea came from his close friend Jelani Bennet, who encouraged Naji to act on his natural gift of connecting with the youth. Bennet was tragically killed a few days after the 2022 event.
His death prompted Naji to act on his friends’ words of encouragement. “Jelani was like, ‘hey, you need to do something with this.” So ever since then, that’s what I do: we do conflict, mediation, and resolution, and things of that nature.
While incarcerated, Naji had become an influential figure amongst his peers. The initial inspiration for the basketball game was the desire to reconnect with those whom he spent time with while inside. After making a post on Facebook, there was a consensus that Naji should be the one to coordinate the gathering.
“We raised people. I was [in] there 25 years. So I raised the young kids 18,19 years old, just like I was raised.” he told The TRiiBE. “Some of them got out. They did like two or three years and got out. They were still like 22, 23 years old. They wanted to have that camaraderie. They felt like they needed to see us.”
Naji expressed how doing this work is extremely gratifying for him. His father died while he was serving 25 years, but he said he never really had a relationship with his father. He remembers when he was first introduced to life on the streets in his youth, and his father’s reaction when he spotted him on a street corner.
“He said, ‘you know what they do right here?’ I say, yeah, I do. He looked at me, shook his head, and told his buddy to pull off. That was his opportunity, right? To tell me to get my ass in this car.”
Now, through the We Not Opps organization, Naji and the other men in his organization play a pivotal role in the lives of the young men involved. His reputation — as someone who has experienced street life, then prison, and now strides to push his community forward — has garnished much respect amongst his peers, as well as Chicago’s youth.
“I know how to deal with certain things,” he said, “because I’ve done it in prison with these guys where we had their attention, because we really saw that we weren’t opps! We got the same judge. We’re sitting in the same chow hall, going on the same bus to another slave camp. So how are we opps?”
For those who may have hoop dreams, Naji has also linked with a Euro league talent scout, known as Coach Phil, who has selected past We Not Opps participants to play professionally overseas. He emphasized that the July 30 event won’t just be a regular pick up game, but a real opportunity to play professionally.
Now married with a 4-year-old son of his own, Naji plans on being the change that the community so desperately needs. Fueling his ambition is still the memory of his 14-year-old self on the corner, and his father pulling off in that car, leaving him behind.
“So, I’m gonna step in,” he told The TRiiBE. I’m not gonna say what somebody else should do. I’m gonna be the one to do it,” he said. “That’s brought other guys that I was incarcerated with, and other people who have never been to prison, but we have the same ideology: to come be mentors.”
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