​When Jameel McClain readies for the snap behind the New York Giants’ defensive line, the imposing 6-foot-1-inch, 250-pound linebacker knows his task is to stop some of the most talented offensive players in the league. To do so, he draws on an unlikely advantage over his opponents: his past.

“Every time I’m lined up, I think they just don’t want this as bad as me,” McClain tells Jens Erik Gould. “They really haven’t been through what I’ve been through or seen the things I’ve seen to have the same feeling at that moment.”

As depicted in the above Bravery Tapes episode, numerous misfortunes marked McClain’s childhood in the crime-ridden area of North Philadelphia. His father was incarcerated, his peers were caught up in drugs, he and his family lived for a time in a homeless shelter, and he often didn’t have enough money for food or new clothes.

For many people, those hardships might be insurmountable. But McClain saw them as an opportunity, an impetus for success. Not only did he ultimately pull himself out of poverty, but he achieved his dream of becoming a professional football player, helped the Baltimore Ravens to a championship in 2012, and is now playing in his seventh NFL season.

“My past motivates me beyond anything,” McClain tells Jens Gould. “I’ve been to the darkest part of dark. I’ve been down like most people have never been down. I’ve overcome all of that and I’m still fighting for a dream.”
​
Directed by Jens Erik Gould 
Produced by Jens Erik Gould and Alex Balassa

​Jens Erik Gould, former Bloomberg correspondent, finds brave acts that often go unnoticed, telling the stories of the people behind them through a unique combination of journalism, music and film. He hopes these stories will move us to courage in our own lives.

​The copper mines of Chile are a man’s world. Traditionally, miners have considered women bad luck for operations. But Isabel Galleguillos paid no attention to that. She dared to become the first woman to own a mine in the country.

Life hasn’t been easy for Galleguillos, who is featured in this episode of Jens Gould’s Bravery Tapes. Her ex-husband physically abused her and she spent years making miserable pay as a farm and restaurant worker.

“It was very enslaving to work how I worked,” she said.

So she decided to start a new life and become a pioneer by opening a mine in the area of Tambillos.

“If I can do it, why not?” she said.

Men didn’t take kindly to working with her at first.

“It was difficult,” Galleguillos said. “They would say, ‘A woman in mining? What?’ Even women would think I was strange.”

But she only responded with her strong work ethic. She worked seven days a week while raising four children as a single mother. Soon she had built a successful mine with male employees.

“My dream is for my children to be alright,” she said. “That’s why I’m fighting. I’ve sacrificed as a woman. I don’t want them to go through what I did.”

Isabel hopes her determination can inspire others as well.

“Don’t let yourself fall. Keep fighting,” she said. “If one thing doesn’t work out, look for something else. But always keep fighting.”

Directed by Jens Erik Gould and Valerie Defert
Produced by Jens Erik Gould and Alex Balassa 
Filmed by Sebastian Vuagnat 
Edited by Blindspot 
Music by Marcelo Ortiz, Jens Erik and Carmen Garza
Thank you to For Your Information TV and Blindspot Pictures

On a hot day in Southern California, William Jones dives to the bottom of a deep-water tank. Clad in a heavy helmet and scuba gear, he spends several minutes at the bottom, removing bolts from large metal pipes, and communicating his progress through a radio to a dive tender on the surface.

It’s not just any surface; Jones emerges from the tank to rejoin his teammates inside the California Institution for Men, a state prison in Chino. As he explains in this episode of Jens Gould’s Bravery Tapes, it’s a much different scenario than a decade ago, when Jones made his living through armed robbery. He was caught when he intercepted a small business owner about to make a bank deposit, charged with a felony and sent to this prison. “I wanted to conquer the world one robbery at a time,” Jones tells Jens Erik Gould. “My priorities were all mixed up. I had no plan for myself, for my family, and didn’t care about anything.”

Now, Jones is a student at the Marine Technology Training Center, a state-run program inside the Chino prison that helps felons become divers, welders, riggers, construction supervisors and mechanics. The center has succeeded in doing something the state’s department of rehabilitation as a whole has failed at: consistently rehabilitating criminals. The state’s recidivism rate — the percentage of individuals released from prison who are incarcerated again within three years — was 61 percent last year.

The diving center achieves its success by offering felons a skill set that leads to a more lucrative career path than many were capable of before they were convicted. Inmates usually have little knowledge of diving or the program itself when they apply, but they’re attracted to the school because they want a way to build a better life once they’re released. Average pay in the industry is around $15 an hour at entry level, and annual salaries can climb to $100,000 within four years. That drastically reduces temptations to return to a criminal life.

Watch Jens Erik Gould’s visit to the diving center. 

Directed by Jens Erik Gould and Valerie Defert
Produced by Jens Erik Gould and Alex Balassa 
Filmed by Sebastian Vuagnat 
Edited by Fabiola Ruiz-Ortega and Blindspot Pictures
Music by See Money
Thank you to For Your Information TV and Blindspot Pictures

As a young man, Ted Wiard had an ideal life. He married his high school sweetheart, worked as a schoolteacher and tennis coach in his picturesque hometown of Taos, New Mexico, and became the father of two beautiful daughters.

Suddenly, everything changed. Wiard’s brother died in a shipwreck in Alaska. Then his wife Leslie was diagnosed with cancer and passed away after two years of struggle with the disease. After adjusting to being a single dad, Wiard got the worst news of all: his two daughters and mother-in-law were killed in a car accident.

This was unfathomable. It was agony. How could so much tragedy happen to one man? “Everything was so sharp, so painful,” he told Jens Gould. “It was more than just salt in a wound. Everywhere I looked, I saw Keri, Amy, Leslie, Richard, my life.”

Wiard left Taos and found himself in Hawai’i, sitting on a beach, trying to make sense of this unthinkable string of calamities. As he explains in a recent Bravery Tapes episode, he felt numb and without purpose. He contemplated swimming past the ocean waves and never coming back.

“If this agony is what the rest of my life is going to be, then I need to be done with my life,” he says, recalling his thoughts on that Maui beach. “Everyday I contemplated if I should die. All I wanted to do was kill myself.”

Yet he did not. Wiard decided life was worth fighting for. He checked himself into a treatment center for alcohol and drugs even though he did neither. He figured his daughters were the drugs he was craving and he needed help with withdrawal.

While his time there helped him heal and move past suicidal thoughts, an unexpected byproduct of his visit proved even more valuable. Wiard realized there was an unfortunate lack of treatment centers for people dealing with grief and loss. “Why weren’t there just places where you could go and say, ‘I’m lost. I’m scared. I’m frozen?’” he asked.

So he started one, and channeled his tragic pain into a newfound passion for helping others dealing with similar trauma. Back near Taos with his new wife Marcela, Wiard opened up Golden Willow Retreat, a haven for people from all over the country to receive counseling, therapy and support to overcome loss.

“The death of Keri, Amy, Leslie and Richard are such an amazing part of the fuel that gives me the passion to do what I do,” Wiard says. “Due to all those experiences of their deaths, I get to help others and at the same time help myself.”

Watch Jens Gould’s journey to see Ted in Taos.

Produced and edited by Jens Erik Gould (braverytapes.com)
Filmed by Lauri Hakola and Tony Weiss
Edited by Greg Reitman (www.gregreitman.me)
Music by Jens Erik (jenserik.bandcamp.com)

You’re driving on the freeway. A car in front of you bursts into flames and there are people inside. What do you do?

UPS driver Lawrence Sanchez was faced with that question on the morning of September 6, 2013. As he traveled on the 60 Freeway in Riverside, California, he saw a Lexus sedan rear-end a 1993 Dodge pickup truck, which came to a halt in the fast lane and then burst into flames. He tells his story in this Bravery Tapes video.

“It was horrific,” Sanchez said. “The most horrific thing I’ve seen in an accident and I’ve been driving almost 30 years.”

Sanchez pulled over to help. When he arrived at the scene, the head of 25-year-old passenger Denise Perez was on fire. Sanchez grabbed his fire extinguisher and doused her. Soon, more bystanders arrived and pulled her out of the burning truck.

“There were several Good Samaritans who stopped and assisted the driver and the passenger within the Dodge pickup truck,” said Travis Monks, spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in Riverside.

Perez sustained major injuries and was transported to a local hospital. The highway patrol declined to give more information about her condition.

Produced and edited by Jens Erik Gould (http://braverytapes.com)
Filmed by Mulitmedios News
Music by The Poem Adept (http://poemadept.com)

John Odom says he doesn’t think of himself as a hero. The people who helped him survive the Boston Marathon bombing are the real heroes, he says, while his role is just to inspire other victims to recover. Yet it’s this type of comment that makes him even more heroic.

To most, just the fact that he survived the April 15 blast is courageous. As John and his wife Karen recount in this two-part segment from Jens Erik Gould’s Bravery Tapes, they were waiting for their daughter to cross the finish line of the race when the bombs went off. While Karen went unscathed, John’s legs were torn apart so badly that doctors questioned whether he would make it. His heart stopped twice because of blood loss, he underwent eleven operations, spent more than a week on life support, and doesn’t remember anything that happened for a month after the bombing. Still, he survived.

Then, experts were unsure he would walk again. After all, the shrapnel tore arteries in each leg and cut his sciatic nerve. But when it came time to leave the hospital for the first time and staff readied a wheelchair, Odom told them he would walk out. Now, he walks with the help of a cane even though he has no feeling in his left foot.

What makes his success all the more laudable is his intent. Odom says he embraced the pains and challenges of recovery to inspire the other victims in the hospital to do the same. “We went to therapy. I felt that I needed to be that strong person for them,” Odom told Jens Gould in an interview upon return to his Southern California home. “I had to be the one.”

And when the blast first happened, even though Odom was the man down, he wanted to make sure his loved ones had survived. “It’s the other people I really thought about,” he says. “I was hoping everything was going to be ok for them.”

Directed and produced by Jens Erik Gould (http://braverytapes.com)
Director of Photography: Jakub Kasztalski (http://www.jakeski.com)
Editor: Greg Reitman (http://www.gregreitman.me)

Early one morning in June, Jens Erik Gould had plans to interview Harriet Kilgore, a homeless singer-songwriter on the Venice Beach boardwalk. When he arrived, he found her alone, half-naked and plastered between a flattened cardboard box and a tattered blanket in an alley. There was nothing pretty about it. She was bawling and she was desperate, a speck of yellow crud lodged in the corner of her eye and her body and clothes soiled from the dirty, morning concrete. “This is really not good, Jens,” she wailed. “My hip is crushed.”

In the middle of the night, a man had demanded sex from her as she lay in a makeshift bed. When she said no, he kicked her relentlessly until fracturing her pelvis. None of the other homeless sleeping there tried to help. The police attempted, but Harriet refused an ambulance because she would have to abandon her dog, Queenie. Six hours later, Jens Gould arrived and called 9-11. As firefighters loaded her onto a stretcher, Harriet’s screams and deep moans intensified and then went silent as the ambulance took her away. Jens was left holding her stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear in one hand and a leash attached to Queenie in the other.

Harriet doesn’t think she’s been brave. But for her, courage doesn’t have the same meaning as it does for most people. That violent morning in June wasn’t the first hardship she had endured. Harriet began living on the streets after running away from her adopted family’s home at age 12. After getting her life together, marrying and having five children, her house burned down in 2001. Since then, she has lived outdoors, sleeping on the concrete, lugging her personal belongings around with her in a bicycle carriage. She has overcome drug addiction, survived attempted rape and endured assaults.

Music has helped Harriet through all this strife. Through it all, she’s blossomed into a talented singer, writing lyrics about helping the world. When Jens Gould first met her, she performed regularly at local cafés in Los Angeles with a Janis Joplin-like voice as solid as a professional musician’s, trying to earn enough money to get off the streets. Jens happened to perform at one of the same venues, and was shocked to find out Harriet would spend the night in it’s in parking lot after her shows. “That lady has had a life. She lives outside,” the amazed host of an open mic at the café told me after Harriet performed one night. “No one else in her circle does things like this.”

Directed and hosted by Jens Erik Gould (http://braverytapes.com)
Director of Photography: Jakub Kasztalski (http://www.jakeski.com)
Editor: Greg Reitman (http://www.gregreitman.me)

Eric and Juan's relationship stands at the intersection of two of the most controversial social issues of our era: gay marriage and immigration reform. Refusing to surrender to their fears, they're marching not for one cause, but two.

Directed by Jens Erik Gould (http://braverytapes.com)
Director of Photography: Jakub Kasztalski (http://www.jakeski.com)
Editor: Greg Reitman (http://www.gregreitman.me)

In the Garifuna communities of Honduras, it’s an act of courage to admit to being HIV positive. With a grant from the Pulitzer Center, Jens Erik Gould and photographer David Rochkind interviewed people who overcame fear and discrimination to go public with their diagnosis and help educate others. The project resulted in an article and video for Time.com and a radio piece for National Public Radio. Jens Gould also co-wrote and recorded a song about HIV with Garifuna recording artist Aurelio Martinez. The track is used in the video.

According to the Honduran government and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4.5 percent of the Garifuna population in the country is HIV positive, a proportion more than five times as high as in the nation as a whole. To put that in perspective, no country in the Western Hemisphere has a rate nearly that high, and it’s twice as high as Haiti’s. While factors fueling the problem include widespread poverty and a tendency for men to migrate to areas rife with the virus, some of the main culprits are social stigma, discrimination and a lack of HIV education.

As the video shows, local communities are using theatre and the arts to combat those ills and educate the population about HIV prevention. From local social workers to health ministry and NGO officials, those who know the Garifuna epidemic best say this cultural approach can be more effective than traditional forms of education such as handing out pamphlets. That’s because music, dance and storytelling are such vital components of Garifuna culture that they engage people and help them reverse bad habits such as unprotected sex.

Directed by Jens Erik Gould and David Rochkind
Filmed by David Rochkind
Edited by David Rochkind
This video was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

A musical and journalistic account of the brave children facing the violence in Mexico.
​
Young Mexicans are responding to the violence of the country’s drug war with acts of bravery. This Bravery Tapes episode tells some of those stories from Monterrey, a city greatly affected by drug-related violence. The episode includes Jens Erik Gould’s original song “Guns Down,” whose lyrics are about a boy growing up around violent kidnapping.

Mexico’s children may be the greatest casualty of the entire drug war. Some 30,000 minors in Mexico participate in organized crime, and at least 1,400 were killed in homicides between 2006 and 2010, according to Mexico’s nonprofit group Network for the Rights of Children.
The headlines are difficult to read: teenagers massacred, little girls shot, a baby killed. The rate of teenagers between 15 and 17 years old grew threefold from 2008 to 2010. 

Some in Mexico say citizens shouldn’t work for a solution, that it’s the government’s problem to solve. Some in positions of leadership even said individual heroism shouldn’t be praised because it distracts us from the government’s obligation to do more. One editor at a prominent newspaper said he couldn’t remember any stories of personal bravery.

But they do exist, as this video shows. And highlighting them can provide inspiration for others to do the same.

Directed and produced by Jens Erik Gould
Edited by David Brown
Music by Jens Erik (www.jenserikmusic.com)