Designing Our Freedom: The Oppression Fashion Show

“And I am more than just a number, more than a percent sign, more than a statistic. I am more than what you’ve heard. What you’ve saw and what you’ve learned. I am more than my social status. I’m reaching as far as I can get. Making moves through splits and dips, I’ve yet to commit. I’m better than what you expect. 99% of the wealth is kept by 1% of the world. But I’m still the one although I am the 99%.”

Short powerful narratives like the one you read above, written by 17 year old Keiandré Hall, were written and performed by 15 talented youth from five youth programs throughout the New Orleans community at our Oppression Fashion Show at The George & Leah Mckenna Museum of African American Art on Saturday Nov. 5, 2011 from 6-9pm. Keiandré’ is a youth member of The Institute for Women& Ethnic Studies’ Mapp Program and her story discusses one of our 3 fashion show themes, poverty. Her story accompanied her self made t-shirt design as she ripped the runway at our Oppression Fashion Show.

The Oppression Fashion Show was organized by The American Friends Service Committee’s Peace Community Activist, Ahmane’ Glover in partnership with A Desire for Change and The Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies(IWES).  The Oppression Fashion Show was designed as a social justice arts initiative that used fashion design to discuss the connections between poverty, violence and poor education systems locally and globally.  Each youth participant was given the task of "redesigning the white tee," a fashion trend that is often associated with negativity, with positive social justice focused messages and creating full outfits that told the stories of our youth on each of the three topics.

We also showcased a variety of youth talent through 9 social justice themed youth performances and 3 digital stories about sexual education created by The Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies(IWES) Mapp Program. The youth performances showcased  11 youth doing rap and dance combinations about violence, a inspirational liturgical dance routine asking youth to “encourage yourself,” 1 modern dance routine about breaking through violence in relationships, and 1 theatrical monologue from “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange.  The 3 digital stories presented by IWES were about AIDS education, sexual education in schools, and sexual health.

This program organized participants ages 16-24 from several different programs in "Designing Our Freedom.” Those youth programs were: the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies’ MAPP Program, Ashe’ Cultural Arts Center’s Ujima Project, The American Friends Service Committee Peace by Piece program, NOPLAY GED Program and students from Tulane University.

The idea for The Oppression Fashion Show first came from a discussion with Mireaya Medina in The American Friends Service Committee’s Portland Office. Mireaya participated in a Fashion Resistance to Militarism in Oakland organized by the Women Of Color Resource Center with Sandra Schwartz in 2009 (http://www.fpif.org/articles/fashioning_resistance_to_militarism). The New Orleans office heard of this great idea and decided to host a similar event in our community with a focus on t-shirt design and the top 3 challenges that our youth face locally and globally.

A Night Out Against Crime

“Tonight was the best night of my life,” says a nine year old from the Desire Neighborhood after her “stomp the violence” dance contest performance at our Night Out Against Crime community event.

These feelings were also felt throughout the Desire neighborhood amongst other youth that attended the 28th Annual National Night Out Against Crime event on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 for neighborhoods throughout the Greater New Orleans Area. The American Friends Service Committee’s New Orleans office joined forces with the Desire For Change community group, Desire Fellowship church group, The City of New Orleans, The New Orleans Police Department Crime Prevention Unit(CrimeStoppers) and the Sampson Neighborhood Park to plan a local youth focused event to celebrate a commitment to peace in the New Orleans community.

Our Sampson Park Night Out Against Crime event in the Desire neighborhood in the 9^th Ward was designed to increase crime prevention awareness, develop positive youth alternatives to violent crimes, and generate support for and participate in local peace and justice programs. The primary focus of all the event partners was to strengthen the neighborhood spirit in the 9^th Ward community and to increase police-community partnerships to fight against community violence.

The New Orleans community hosted over 249 gatherings in honor of the national Night Out Against Crime campaign. To promote community planning efforts, The New Orleans Police Department’s Crime Prevention Unit(CrimeStoppers) held a contest to award the best youth focused neighborhood events. The American Friends Service Committee along with several community partners won second place in this contest earning a $200 donation from CrimeStoppers, two local television news appearances by Night Out Against Crime organizers, CrimeStoppers youth gift packages, and visits from local law enforcement to our Night Out Against Crime event.

Our award winning event hosted approximately 165 youth of color in four “stomp the violence” themed activities.  Youth participated in our “Stomp the Violence” dance contest, “Dodge the Violence” dodge ball game, “Kick N’ Free” kick ball game, “Peace is Power” street art activities and much more. There were also live musical performances by local youth activists and refreshments.

The National Night Out Against Crime campaign has proven to be an effective, inexpensive and enjoyable program to promote neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships in our fight for a safer city. New Orleans has 97 neighborhood watch groups and around 160 people signed commitment cards to start or join their neighborhood watch groups because of Night Out Against Crime activities according to New Orleans Mayor, Mitch Landrieu, in a nola.com interview.

New Orleans Youth Say, “Give me Justice, Give me Peace, Give me Unity!”

New Orleans youth are crying out for a stop to violence! Our response to this outcry is “The Second Annual Peace is Power Giant Puppet Parade” organized by The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in partnership with The Leona Tate Foundation, O. Perry Walker High School, Be Creative Studios and Skookum Productions. The parade was held on Saturday September 17, 2011 from 5-8pm at Duncan Plaza across from New Orleans City Hall. Around 157 parade participants met at Duncan Plaza and marched for a mile and a half through downtown New Orleans and Canal St.  back to Duncan Plaza.

 This year’s parade was filled with lanterns and lights meant to set our nonviolence message ablaze. Sponsoring groups of the parade worked with local community organizations to build 35 puppets of varying sizes to reflect the peace themes of New Orleans youth. The subtheme of this year’s parade was: Celebrating Unity and Diversity in Communities.

Youth groups met at places like, The Desire Change Summer Camp and The Leona Tate Foundation Summer program, starting in June 2011 to build the puppets that were showcased in the parade. During these workshops, youth and community members were asked to express their feelings about peace through the creation of giant puppets like “ the house of light and laughter” which was a giant house where angry puppets went into the house and came out happy, the “world of diversity and love” that lit up and was surrounded by hands of love combating fists of anger and much more. Twelve local organizations marched with their puppets to the music of a  New Orleans brass band and african drummers, as parade onlookers second lined with the passing peace puppets.

 Dixie Moore, an art teacher at O. Perry Walker High School, also organized her art classes to build four large puppets representing the African Adinkra symbol for peace meaning “bite not one another.”  We also hosted a youth talent showcase before the parade that included performances from the O. Perry Walker Dance Assemble to earth song by Micheal Jackson to address the state of the environment in New Orleans, Luckylou with a nonviolence rap and dance combination called  “Stomp the Violence” and five other local youth performers with social justice messages.

                                                                                                                             

This parade was created based on the belief that creative arts and social justice work hand in hand in youth peace building work. So in celebration of the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21, 2011, we offered a Peace is Power Giant Puppet Parade on Sept. 17^th to renew our community pledge to a nonviolent environment for the youth of New Orleans. Local youth joined the community of national social activists in using the age old tradition of theatrical puppet pageantry for community empowerment.

"We Are One" Youth Summit

On April 9, 2011 Peace by Peace Nonviolence Youth Group facilitated a nonviolence workshop for local high school youth at the "We Are One" Youth Summit hosted by The American Friends Service Committee and  Project Future For Our Youth  at the  Desire Street Ministries building in New Orleans.

The Peace by Piece nonviolence workshop addressed the connections between violence, the 'school to prison pipeline' and militarism. Check out Peace by Piece leader, Briana O'Neal, presenting a powerful story about the effects of the school to prison pipeline on local youth.




The 'school to prison pipeline' is a system of pushing children out of the school system into the juvenile justice and criminal systems by using "zero tolerance" policies and testing programs meant to improve low performing schools by pushing out children with low test scores, behavioral problems and disabilities.

To find out more information please visit http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline-fact-sheet-pdf and download the 'school to prison pipeline' fact sheet.

Peace By Piece Train Chicago Youth

Peace by Peace Nonviolence youth group hosted a nonviolence training for 36 high school students from different schools in the Chicago area during their "Social Justice Spring Break" to New Orleans on April 18, 2011. The "Social Justice Spring Break" organizer of the Chicago group,  says that he and his youth were "blown away by the power and enthusiasm of our group." Please take a minute to view our slide show of this nonviolence training for Chicago youth.

"Skating for Peace" Youth Event!!

Students came out and got their roll on with the Peace by Piece Nonviolence youth group at our “Skating for Peace” Youth Event on March 25th, 2011 from 9pm until Midnight at Airline Skate Center on 611 Airline Drive in Metairie Louisiana.  Local youth were able to come together and party with a purpose while supporting local nonviolence work in New Orleans.

 We were able to celebrate life by saying “Yes” to nonviolence and “No” to violence in our community. Peace by Piece youth leaders were able to do this by setting up a table and offering peace literature, and a peaceful social environment.  There was also  a “off the hook” performance by Peace by Piece leader, LUCKyLOU,  and the FnS crew.

You can relive the experience with us below. 


http://s1112.photobucket.com/albums/k499/asglover/?action=view&current=5894c110.pbw

Poetry for Peace Night was Slammin!!

“Why do you like to see someone you love laying there lifeless?,” is one of the many questions that a sixth grade student at Batiste Cultural Arts Academy(BCAA) in New Orleans asks her peers during her poem “Stop the Killing and Give it a Rest.” Around sixteen other students also performed poems like this to an audience of about 63 of their peers during the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) New Orleans’ Poetry for Peace night held in partnership with City Year New Orleans on Feb. 24, 2011.

This visionary sixth grader began her poem by saying that her brother got caught up in the wrong things and almost lost his life because of it, and this was her response to the life and death situation that he faced. Her simple solution to violence was “Let’s just give it a rest.”

The talent of the students at BCAA crossed age limits. Students from kindergarten through eighth grade stood tall and shared their vision of peace and violence. A five year old student brought it all home when he talked about the power of reading and education through his lyrical poem “Read the Book.” He told his peers to “read the book, read that book, I read the book, It’s your turn.” His beautiful declaration of the power of reading was met by a standing ovation from the crowd.

These poetry pieces were presented as an artistic culmination of a week long look at poetry and was the highlight of our Poetry for Peace night. The event also showcased two nonviolence workshops hosted by AFSC’s Peace by Piece Nonviolence Youth Committee and a Peace Recycled Art Class led by Peace by Piece leader Briana O’Neal and AFSC’s Peace Building Community Activist, Ahmane' Glover.

Peace by Piece youth leaders Domonique Triggs and Rose Gilliam led their interactive workshop by
discussing the 3 levels of conflict and the 4 types of conflict. The Peace Recycled Art Class showed students how to use recycled products to create peace jewelry that reflected their stance as peace leaders combating violence in their community. Young girls could be seen wearing earrings bearing words like “justice” and young men showed their friends their necklaces’ with words like “share and freedom.” Each student used their voice and body movements to help them explore peace and violence in their artwork.

 Poetry for Peace night embraces the power of “the story” and the freedom that our youth feel through telling their stories. It resurrected lost hope and raised new awareness in our community. This event came on the cusp of a weekend where eleven people of color were murdered and three youth were shot in various New Orleans neighborhoods. Poetry for Peace serves as a reminder that: Despite what anyone says, our youth have the power to use art to transform violence.