Chicago’s violence took the lives of their loved ones. They're telling their stories to try to change things.

The room was quiet. The only thing the seven people sitting around the table knew about each other was that their lives had been marked by gun violence.

That’s how it all started — seven survivors, gathering to tell their stories. They were part of the Survivor Storytelling Network — an initiative by the news organization The Trace to empower violence survivors to tell their stories in their own words.

Here, the subjects of crime coverage become the writers, and they tell their own stories of violence in Chicago, hoping to show how its reverberates far beyond its victims, affecting families, friends, communities. Why the crisis is everyone’s problem. And to shine a light on different possibilities for combatting violence.