Friday, August 5, 2011

Young Leaders Summer Street Festival of Learning

"If I had a magic wand, what change would I bring to my community?"

This is the question New Orleans Liberation Academy students and teachers participating in ATD Fourth World Movement - New Orleans "Young Leaders Training" explored together with young leaders from organizations and communities across the city including representatives of People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, Students at the Center and more.

We looked at issues of extreme poverty and its effects on the youngest, and most vulnerable in our communities. We further developed our understandings of education as a human right. We learned effective strategies for listening to each other and developing solutions to the challenges we face as individuals and members of our communities. Eventually we all realized that the changes we want to bring to our community don't require a magic wand at all, but rather just a commitment to organizing collectively for the goals we want to achieve.

This initial organizing resulted in the Summer Street Festival of Learning at the 7th Ward Neighborhood Center every Thursday, Friday and Saturday for 3 weeks in a row in July/August. The Summer Street Festival of Learning has featured learning activities, games and more for children, youth and adults in the neighborhood including juggling, painting, music, reading, rocket science, resume writing, computer literacy, dance and more.
The third and final week of the Summer Street Festival of Learning kicked off yesterday! Join us on Saturday August 6th from 4:00-7:00pm where the children and youth will display and present what they've created and learned during the three weeks and for the whole neighborhood to come out and see it. It will be a mix of kids, teenagers, adults, people who know us and hopefully some who have been wondering what we've been doing for the past weeks. We'll be doing capoeira, painting a mural, eating good food, listening to music and watching a dance performance by some of the kids. It should be lots of fun!


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