The Build Program

The Build Program Training communities to stop violence and BUILD safety through prevention, intervention, and interdiction.

Award-winning 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization national certified training program. 200k + trained across 127+ cities. ✊🏽

🔗 buildprogram.org

Comrades 🗣️ , Columbus, Ohio PCITI Level 1 is officially a wrap. 👏🏾Three days in the room with practitioners who came re...
10/09/2026

Comrades 🗣️ , Columbus, Ohio PCITI Level 1 is officially a wrap. 👏🏾

Three days in the room with practitioners who came ready, stayed engaged, and showed up for the work from start to finish. That is what community-based public safety looks like in practice.

Salute to the teams, CVR with OVP, Urban League, and Community for New Directions. The commitment, the discipline, and the energy you brought to the room will carry forward into every community you serve.

Salute to our leadership team for holding the room, pouring in, and delivering the methodology with the discipline this work demands.👊🏽

This is how we BUILD!



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

10/08/2026

27 years in Inglewood, three decades of showing up, and on the day of our first Building Soldierettes workshop Raina Carrillo turned to the young girls in the room and told them the truth most of us had to learn the hard way.

You are enough.

Whatever you dream, follow it, set the short-term goals and the long-term goals, and do not let anybody talk you out of either one.

That is what pouring in looks like, not a speech but a reminder, from a woman who has done the work long enough to know what it costs and long enough to know it is still worth it.

This is why Building Soldierettes exists, to raise up women and men who will lead with integrity, protect their communities, and carry community-based public safety forward. The next generation of practitioners, interventionists, and community leaders is in that room, and they are listening.

Salute, Raina.



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

10/06/2026

Comrades, we are on the ground in Columbus, Ohio this week delivering PCITI Level 1.

Senior Trainer Instructor Tommie set the tone opening day with a reminder of why BUILD walks into every city with humility first.

We're not here to dictate. We're are here to assist. -- Tommie Ttop

Iron sharpens iron. Nobody is going to save us but us.

Salute to Columbus for showing up. Three days of real work ahead.



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

🗣️ Warriors, the work don’t stop. This October BUILD-PCITI is on the ground in Virginia Beach, Columbus, Des Moines, Mem...
10/05/2026

🗣️ Warriors, the work don’t stop.

This October BUILD-PCITI is on the ground in Virginia Beach, Columbus, Des Moines, Memphis, and Newark training the next line of practitioners to prevent, interrupt, and respond to community violence through community-based public safety.

Virginia Beach, VA | September 30 to October 1
Columbus, OH | October 4 to October 8
Des Moines, IA | October 12 to October 16
Memphis, TN | October 19 to October 23
Newark, NJ | October 25 to October 28

Over 200,000 trained and the number keeps growing.👊🏽

Want The BUILD Program in your city? Contact us



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

🧠 MINDSET MONDAY | DR. AQUIL BASHEERThe Commander on discipline through routine."No excesses, just adjustments. The stre...
10/05/2026

🧠 MINDSET MONDAY | DR. AQUIL BASHEER

The Commander on discipline through routine.

"No excesses, just adjustments. The strength is the routine.
— Dr. Aquil Basheer

Most people chase extremes thinking that is where the breakthrough lives, but real practitioners know the breakthrough is in the daily discipline, the small corrections, and the willingness to stay the course when nothing feels dramatic.

Stay the course. That's the BUILD mindset.



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

10/02/2026

⏮️ FLASHBACK FRIDAY

From the Heart of Violence, 2015, an independent short documentary.

The Commander shared this clip on his page in June 2019 with these words:

"Comrades, putting in work over the decades. You can't put this coat of 'Comprehensive Community Empowerment, Violence Elimination, Street Trauma Reduction, and Psychological re-direction' on for a day or when it's convenient. This has to be a part of your Core if you're going to be effective.

All Power to the Warriors in this clip, been working together with them for over 30 years.

All Power to the People."
— Dr. Aquil Basheer, June 9, 2019

By the time this film was made the Commander had already given 30 years to this work. He had been in rooms most people would never walk into, buried young ones most of us only read about, and built a methodology nobody was asking him to build because nobody else was going to do it.

A decade after this film and over 40 years into this movement, the warriors he trained are still in the streets, still in the rooms, still building what he showed us was possible.

That is the legacy. That is what putting it in your core looks like.

See the Commander's original post from June 2019: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0YSTK18FUqrnPX4gm3YQNJY8mcjgTLyrY75J5iBfBoozeBGMyAGHX9pvHtZ6MKYF8l&id=100064277336441

Watch the full documentary on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMMjafWleBc

All Power to the People.

🎥 Video courtesy of Manifest Justice LA



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

10/02/2026

Comrades, Building Soldierettes was created to BUILD alongside, not to compete.

Halimah Basheer, Executive Director of The BUILD Program, on what this movement is really about: showing women of all ages what leadership looks like, what discipline looks like, what being strong in character looks like, and what it means to stand in alignment with our soldiers, our men, and our brothers.

Because this is work that cannot be done alone.

We need each other to BUILD legacy.
BUILD strength.
BUILD protection.
BUILD within.

The mission continues 👊🏽






📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

📸 DUBLIN, IRELAND RECAPWarriors, two weeks on the ground in Dublin, and we are still processing what we built together.T...
10/01/2026

📸 DUBLIN, IRELAND RECAP

Warriors, two weeks on the ground in Dublin, and we are still processing what we built together.

This September, BUILD-PCITI delivered PCITI Level 1, Level 2 Advanced Leadership, and Train the Trainer to our first PCITI cohort in Ireland. What came out of that room is bigger than a training—it is a commitment to strengthening community-based public safety and how communities respond to violence.

First, we honor our founder, Dr. Aquil F. Basheer, our Commander, whose vision, frontline experience, and training expertise gave birth to BUILD-PCITI. The operational framework he created continues to guide this work. This historic milestone carries his legacy forward, equipping another generation of practitioners to serve and protect their communities with discipline, integrity, and purpose.

Salute to National Master Lead Trainer Brother Daamin Ali for leading the training with the discipline and depth this work demands.

Salute to our core partners at the Community Based Public Safety Collective for carrying this work forward internationally in partnership with BUILD-PCITI. We recognize Founder, leader & pillar Aqeela Sherrills for his commitment to this shared work and our Executive Director, Sister Commander Halimah Basheer, whose leadership and partnership helped make this historic moment possible.

To every practitioner who stepped into that room, stayed hungry to learn, and committed to carrying this methodology back to the communities you serve: you are part of what comes next. To those who completed all three trainings, salute to your dedication to deepening your practice and preparing to help others lead.

To Senator Lynn Ruane, thank you for your leadership, hospitality, and commitment to your communities. To Canal Communities LDATF, Merchants Quay Ireland, Deonach, Juvenis, and every organization that showed up in alignment with this work: this is the beginning of what we are building together.

This is the work. This is the legacy in motion. Together, We BUILD.

09/29/2026

🎤 TESTIMONIAL TUESDAY FROM OUR COMRADES IN DUBLIN, IRELAND

"The most comprehensive training I have ever received."

Niamh McGuinness of Merchants Quay Ireland and the Canal Communities Violence Reduction Advisory Group, completed all three levels of PCITI Community Violence Intervention Training and Train The Trainer in Dublin, and she called it the most comprehensive training she has ever received in intervention work.

Merchants Quay Ireland works nationally with people impacted by addiction, homelessness, mental health, and violence. Niamh plans to stay close to the development of CVI in Ireland because she sees the potential to reduce violence and challenge how communities understand what causes it in the first place.

This is what the international expansion of PCITI looks like. Real practitioners, doing real work, in communities that need it.

Delivered in Dublin by BUILD-PCITI in collaboration with our core partners at Community Based Public Safety Collective.

What is one thing you have learned recently that changed how you show up in your work? Drop it below.



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

🧠 MINDSET MONDAYThe Commander on earning your position."Stop attempting to secure what you haven't earned.— Dr. Aquil Ba...
09/28/2026

🧠 MINDSET MONDAY

The Commander on earning your position.

"Stop attempting to secure what you haven't earned.
— Dr. Aquil Basheer

This work is not for the uncommitted, and you do not get the seat, the trust, or the respect without putting in the hours nobody sees.

Earn it 🫡That's the BUILD mindset 👊🏽



📞 800-926-2155
🔗 buildprogram.org

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