Thinking Global, Acting Local

Wow, wow, wow! What a great day. Today marks are third day of facilitating outings for CEO kids summer camp, and this was perhaps our most ambitious day yet.

At 10am this morning we had several folks from Food Not Bombs(FNB) join us along with six youth participants(11-15 years old). The FNB folks had prepared a brief talk on what they do and why they do it. There was a group discussion on the priorities set by our federal budget, and the root causes of homelessness and poverty. For FNB sharing free vegetarian meals is a way protest to war, poverty, oppression, and social injustice.

After a group discussion everyone participated in preparing a really big meal. It was clear that all of the youth participants were enthusiastic about helping chop veggies, stir fry food, and do all the other tasks required to pull off a large meal.

Then it was time to pack everything up and head to Hurt park in Downtown Atlanta. There we were greeted by Balewa Alimayu, director of the Homeless and Incarcerated Veterans Program, and several of the folks he works with. We set up the food and shared it with everyone in the park.

After we all had a stomach full of delicious food we made a sharing circle, Balewa introduced several veterans to the group. Each veteran was courageous enough to share their struggle, not only with surviving a combat zone, but the struggle surviving coming home from a war zone.

The message was driven home over and over again, articulated in several different ways but different people: We need to invest in our communities, not war.

With multiple wars, Wall Street bailouts, record home foreclosures, drastic education budget cuts, MARTA cuts, and cuts to the public sector in general, FNB's message really resonated with everyone. For every bomb, every young person recruited and deployed, every community destroyed overseas, ever dollar spent on military aid, represents a robbery of our communities here, in our time of need.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Wonderroot Day 2!

With the success of our first day facilitating field trips for CEO Kids summer camp, the group was anxiously awaiting our next meeting. We followed up with yet another day at Wonderroot Community Arts Center. The students were eager to check on their projects from the last Wonderroot visit and excited to see what other projects they could create.

On Friday at Wonderroot two of the volunteer staff were able to share with us the vision of Wonderroot of contributing to social change through art and also by providing a safe space for youth of their surrounding communities. This past Friday the students were taught how to make creative collages of things they felt passionately about. The collages ranged from themes of Justin Beiber to themes of the camp itself. Another new project they took on was patch making, where we saw similar themes to those that were in the collages. The students were excited to wear their patches proud!

The kids were also able to check in on their ceramics projects and were looking forward to coming back to Wonderroot on their own time to glaze their pieces. Finally, the most anticipated part of Friday was for the kids to get to listen to the final product of their 'Monkey Fist' track. It's definitely going to be a hit and will soon be up on the blog for others to have a listen!

CEO Kids is looking forward to SCAP further introducing them into the social justice world. We have a couple more field trips planned with the group that include serving food to the homeless with Food Not Bombs, and also a trip to the King Center! We're excited at every opportunity to reach youth, and even more excited that the youth we encounter want to continue to learn and be a part of SCAP!

Josie Figueroa

American Friends Service Committee

Social Justice Summer Camp Day One!

During a career fair at Stephenson high school Student Career Alternatives Program was approached by an enthusiastic faculty member,Tonetta Collins, who was organizing a summer camp for youth age 10-13. It's the first time Tonetta has organized a summer camp and she wanted to reach out to for ideas.

SCAP ended up agreeing to facilitate six all day field trips designed to open up dialogues with youth about social justice, grassroots community organizing, civic engagement, and arts as a medium for positive social change. Yesterday was day one and we all had a blast. SCAP partnered with Wonderroot Community Art Center for not just one but two field trips. Yesterday youth learned their way around Wonderroot digital media lab, recording studio, and ceramics studio. One of the exciting collaberative projects we all worked on that day was the recording of a song. Youth came up with a song that was about the famed martial arts move, "Monkey Fist" which ended up being an analogy for hidden strength and self defense. We'll be putting out the song on this blog tomorrow evening!

Youth also learned how a community art center works, and how they can access all the resources Wonderroot offers young folks. Camp participants were treated to a delicious lunch in Wonderoots community garden provided by Homegrown restaurant.

It's an understatement that day one went well. All the youth were super excited about their day and it was clear that they eagerly await day two. We want to give an extra big shout out to wonderroot, and all the amazing staff that devoted their time to our kids.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee