Compton Junior Posse

Every equestrian can identify with the transformational and healing power of horses. For many of us, it would not be too strong to say that horses, in one way or another, have saved us. There’s just something, as the phrase goes, about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.

At the Compton Junior Posse, Founder and Executive Director Mayisha Akbar is truly saving kids who, without her program, might never even see the outside of a horse. Akbar’s backyard stables are nestled in a small agricultural section of Compton, a city in South Central Los Angeles which has a reputation for high crime and gang violence.

Programs of this type, featuring riding and general horsemanship instruction, are not unfamiliar. Kids learn to take responsibility, achieve goals, and make healthy choices by working with horses. But at the Compton Junior Posse, the horses are providing an alternative to dangerous street life and potentially deadly gang activity.

For kids like Keenan Abercrombia, who proudly states “Horses are my gang,” working with the horses at Akbar’s stable is a safe haven in a highly unstable world. Virtually everyone involved with the Posse, from the kids, to volunteers, to Akbar herself, have had their lives impacted by violence. Some former program participants have even been killed. But others, who rode at the stables as children, now bring their kids to have the same positive experience.

Over the 16 years of the program, Akbar has developed a strong curriculum, with riding used as “carrot” to engage kids in the hard, daily work of ranch management, including feeding, cleaning stalls, grooming horses, and caring for the grounds. The riding also, says Akbar, teaches the kids about body mechanics, balance, and etiquette.

Akbar has made riding in competitions across Southern California one of the key ingredients in the program, both for the sense of accomplishment it provides and because it takes the kids to places where they can interact with people from other communities – and even Olympians.

In 2009, the Compton Junior Posse held a clinic with US Olympic gold medalist Will Simpson at the HITS Thermal horse show and, in 2008, Julie Goodnight filmed an episode of her Horse Master television series with the Posse. This year, Grand Prix rider Mandy Porter coached Posse riders at Thermal.

We really can’t tell the story of Compton Junior Posse much better than this 2009 story from NBC. We hope you’ll watch and, if horses are YOUR gang too, consider supporting the work of this very important program.

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