Once a junkyard, this garden is a healing 'altar' for survivors of violent crime

'For us, the garden is a physical manifestation of peace,' says Sherrills of the Survivors Healing Garden in Watts. Photos: Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Walking into the Survivors Healing Garden on 108th Street, just blocks from Watts Towers in Los Angeles, the United States, Oya Sherrills radiates calm as she stops to pick up trash that has blown in from the Union Pacific railroad tracks nearby.

"This was a junkyard with cars all over the place," she says, surveying the 3,150sq ft (292.6sq m) plot of land that surrounds the office of the nonprofit Reverence Project.