Coming up this month at YAC!

This is a busy, busy month here at Youth Action Coalition! Every week we have more events coming down the pike. So what, you ask, is up? Here's the list!

Thursday, April 29th at 7pm Food for Thought Books is hosting a community dialogue on smashing racism as part of their Celebration for Liberation series. A suggested $5-25 donation will help support the effort to bring people from Western MA (including youth from VV!) to the US Social Forum in Detroit this June. Check out the Food for Thought Books website or Facebook for more information about upcoming events in the Celebration for Liberation series.

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And because it is impossible to have too much dialogue, you should also join YAC for the third installment of the Dialogue Project on Friday, April 30th from 3:45-6pm. The first two conversations were amazing, and we hope to have even more YACies participate in this third and final dialogue. Come one, come all! Help YAC advance our goal of being an anti-racist organization. Partake in the DELICIOUS food that Leda so generously provides us.

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From El Barrio to the World: Community Film Festival
5/1 -- 1-5pm @ Hooker Auditorium, Mt. Holyoke College

Join Mt. Holyoke College student organizers and a consortium of local youth, college students and filmmakers for an afternoon of inspiring videos! YAC’s Video Vanguards youth will represent! For more info: (646) 703-3205 or youthsummits09@gmail.com

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Site Beyond Sight

Friday, May 7, 2010 -- 7-10pm
Hampshire College Library Gallery

Join our Get Up Get Down Program Coordinator, Hampshire College student, and artist, Kamil Peters, for this innovative exhibition. Experience the magic of masks!

Get Up Get Down youth creations will also be shown, part of Kamil’s critical pedagogy explorations with GUGD.

In Kamil's words:
"A gallery show, and the magic of the influence that the beginning of time contributed to make today what it is. Masks have been a part of every culture, before the oceans were explored cultures across the globe were creating some form of face-altering imagery that went beyond "art", because it was a way of life. My show is an attempt to bring that form of homage to the present day."

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As part of its work on Social Justice and Health Equity, The Town of Amherst and the Amherst Department of Human Rights and Human Resources is extending a special invitation to all interested people to FREE screenings and discussions of:

UNNATURAL CAUSES… is inequality making us sick?

DATES
28 April 2010—Place Matters
12 May 2010—Not Just a Paycheck: co-sponsored by YAC!
19 May 2010—In Sickness and In Wealth
9 June 2010—When the Bough Breaks
16 June 2010—Bad Sugar
23 June 2010—Collateral Damage

TIME 5:00pm—7:00pm
5:00—5:30 Registration
5:30—6:00 Screening
6:00—7:00 Dialogue to Action
WHERE
Amherst Cinema
This program is FREE and open to the public. Because seating is limited, we recommend obtaining free tickets IN ADVANCE at the Amherst Cinema box office.

The screening will include a forum—Implications of inequality and health for the Amherst community: A dialogue among participants—facilitated by Dr. Barbara J. Love and introductions by Amherst Human Rights/Human Resources Director, Eunice Torres.

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Please Join Us!
Capturing Stories for Community End of Year Exhibit, Discussion and Celebration
Thursday, May 13th 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Food for Thought Books
106 North Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01002-1703
(413) 253-5432
www.foodforthoughtbooks.com

Capturing Stories for Community is a collaboration between the Community Engagement Program of Commonwealth Honors College--UMass Amherst and six local community-based organizations: Nuestras Raíces, the Literacy Project, Youth Action Coalition, the Amherst Survival Center, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Hampshire County, and the Center for New Americans

In this year-long community-based research project, students volunteered in one of six community-based organizations, conducted research on relevant economic, social and policy issues, and collected oral histories of people who participate in and are served by the community organizations.

The collected stories are one way for the participating community organizations to honor and share the life experiences and views of the individuals with whom they work and serve. The course explores the role that stories can play in deepening our understanding of public issues and building community capacity and challenges us to think about the relationships among community, history and social change. This end of year presentation is an opportunity for all those involved in the project, and others, to hear a selection of the stories and learn more about the project.

Triggering Change Conference THIS WEEKEND at Hampshire College

This Saturday is the Triggering Change Conference at Hampshire College. The topics this year are Hip Hop, Community Engagement, and Sites of Empowerment.

The conference features many workshops that are focused specifically on engaging youth - this is a really amazing opportunity to bring the dialogue from your YAC program out into the wider community.

Registration is free! Here's the website: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/59F776X


The schedule of the conference is available at this website: http://trggradio.wordpress.com/

Here are a couple of the workshops and discussions that are really exciting:

'The Main Ingredient’: Youth Education and Media Reform Movements

PANEL
Moderator: Issa Carter

Dee Shabazz, “Seeing the World Through Their Eyes: Media-based Youth Empowerment Strategies at Peck Middle School”

Herman Shelton: “Anti-Violence Organizing with Chicago Youth”

Jordan Berg, “Step by Step: How Political Literacy can Advance Media Reform”


What’s class got to do with it? How talking about class will advance economic and racial justice

WORKSHOP
Facilitated by Rachel Rybaczuk

This workshop will give participants an opportunity to explore race and class intersections from personal, organizational and cultural perspectives. Interactive activities, dialogue, reflection, and visual media will give participants a dynamic way to learn about economic inequality, identify systemic examples of classism, and reflect on social class identity—and how these interact with race. The goal is to bring the topic of class into our communities and movements so we can advance economic and racial justice.


Defining the Elements: Empowering Youth through the Evolution of Hip-Hop

(A workshop designed primarily for youth)
Facilitated by Aisha Jordan and 2050 Legacy


At a Glance: Addressing College Access

The Student Bridges program at UMass Amherst connects underrepresented first-generation college students with K-12 youth in reciprocal tutoring-mentoring relationships with the goal of increasing college access. – In this interactive discussion, participants will consider the concept of college access and explore their relationship to it. Participants will then listen to panelist discuss various barriers and pathways to college as identified by Student Bridges staff students and affiliated youth. By listening and identifying with the facilitators, we hope that participants will begin to think about college access and their role and ability to make change.


Hope to see many of you there!

Mask-making workshop

On Saturday, April 10 Kamil led a mask-making workshop for all members of YAC. It was great fun! Here are some photos:

Kamil explains the mask-making process.


Evelynn, Grace, Sam, Hannah and Staci cut strips of plaster!


The group designing their masks.

Looking great, Sam!

All participants both had their face cast in plaster and helped cover their partner's face - there were lots of creative designs. We painted several masks at GEV Ware this past Monday, and they turned out AWESOME!

The masks will be on display at the YAC end of the year show on May 14th, and at Kamil's Div-III show on May 7th! Come out and see them!

Community Event: Hip Hop Dance Workshop this Saturday

This Saturday, April 10, 2010, 2050 Legacy in conjunction with UMass Student Bridges, will be hosting a dance workshop downstairs in the UMass Campus Center, room 904-08 from 2-4:30 pm.

Please bring clothes and sneakers you can move in and LOTS of ENERGY!!!

The pieces created in the workshop will be showcases at Student Bridge's Hip Hop Evolution arts event on April 30th at 7pm. Please pass the word along and we'll see you on Saturday!!!

Exciting Upcoming Events this weekend!!!

We've got some great events coming up this weekend at YAC!

Tomorrow, Friday, is the second installment of the Dialogue Project.

The Dialogue Project aims to engage people of all races/ethnicities in dialogue about the idea of race and racial identification as embedded in power relations based on skin color that remain very much in existence in the current cultural climate. We will conduct three sequential dialogues with YAC in small groups. Each group will discuss the impact of racial identity on their lives and on the groups with which they identify. We will also look at the ways all groups participate (whether voluntarily or coerced) in whiteness as they struggle to gain footing in a racially stratified society.

The second dialogue is in the Pole Room at the Bangs Community Center in Amherst. Come at 3:45 to enjoy some delicious homemade food and treats from Henion Bakery, then participate in the dialogue from 4-6pm.


On Saturday, April 10 from 10-1, Get Up Get Down will be leading a mask-making workshop at in Studio 2 of the Art Barn at Hampshire College. This is an exciting opportunity to learn some basic mask-making skills, spend time with everyone in YAC programs, and cover your face in vaseline and plaster! It's a chance for people to get some instruction but to also explore their own creativity.

This workshop is offered as a part of the Hampshire College Center for Civil Liberties and Public Policy's (CLPP) annual Reproductive Rights conference. We are encouraging any interested youth to participate in the conference during the afternoon on Saturday.

If you are interested in attending the conference as well as the mask-making workshop, you should register in advance if possible (it's free). Here's the link: http://clppconference.rvtc.us/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=1

Fabulous GUGD interns Vic and Cory have generously offered to have a talk-back, a safe space where YACies can bring up/talk through anything that came up during the workshops, after the last workshop of the day (at 6:45). It is important that we know who is interested in attending the conference so they can reserve a space. Please post on the Facebook event wall if you want to attend the conference as well as the workshop!

Here is the schedule for the conference: http://clpp.hampshire.edu/projects/conference/2010/schedule. You will see when you look through that there are a number of workshops focused on youth and youth-related interests that could be compelling for folks to attend!

Hope to see many of you there!