"It's My Life" Youth Film Fest a Big Success!!

To Mark the third, "It's My Life" youth art event Student Career Alternatives Program, a project of AFSC, wanted to try something different.

This year we decided to organize a youth film festival instead of a general art contest. Our thinking was that short thematic films could have a greater impact beyond the art contest event itself and that it would be really cool for youth to see their films on the big screen.

We were really excited to have eight short films qualify for the contest(click here to see them all)

The festival was held at the Plaza theater this past Tuesday and was really well attended. It was great to have teachers, youth, and parents come together to watch and honor the work that went into these films.

Awards went to the following film makers:


The SCAP Career Alternatives Award presented by Dalia Alvarez
Kayla Crumbley for, "A Silver Screen Dream"

The WAND Award presented by Courtney Hanson
Katherine Sudakova and Paul Duhe for, "Love....Just Love"

The Wonderroot Youth Film Maker Award presented by Jennifer Lobsenz
Tesh Yana for, "Horizons School"














OOHA Housing Justice Award presented by Carmen Pittman
Christianna Marino for, "How to Fight Poverty Locally"

The Cash Grand Prize was presented by Tim Franzen
Daniel MiQuel for, "Gotta Make a Change"









Every official "It's My Life" youth film festival selection was awarded with a certificate and a one year pass to Wonderroot Community Art Center. At Wonderroot youth will have free access to a digital media lab, a dark room, performance space, ceramic studio, and a recording studio!

We were also grateful to have former "It's My Life" youth art contest winner Aisha Ra'nee present to give all the youth film makers words of encouragement. Aisha's video entry several years ago is one of the reasons we decided to try doing a film festival this year. After winner 2011's art contest Aisha went on to enter a film program at Georgia State University where she has thrived as a student. 

We want to give a big thanks to all of this year's sponsors, Georgia WAND, Wonderroot, Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, and The Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition.

Also a big thanks to the Plaza Theater for giving us a discount prize on the theater rental.

This event would not have been possible with out the countless hours of volunteer time that Victoria Temple and Erica Schoon put into this project! Thank you both for your amazing service!

For more pictures of the event visit SCAP's Facebook group and join here.

Can't wait till next year!!

Be The Change 2011 Day 2

Day two of Be The Change was all about rolling up sleeves and getting down with what movement building is all about, learning how to identify root causes of problems in our communities, and effective tools to create the change we want to see in Georgia.

The day started off with a workshop on movement building. It's a workshop that I've done the last few years, but this year the lovely and talented Dejah Ault did the bulk of facilitating. The workshop focused on solid models designed to start conversations and build relationship with communities you're working in.

After the workshop there was a social justice market place. Several amazing organizations set up tables with literature and spoke with youth about their work. Atlanta Indy Media, Georgia Students for Public Higher Education, Women's Feminist Health Center, Student Career Alternatives Program, and Art as an Agent for Change were all there.

After lunch the day brought a bunch of high impact presentations on not only what Dr. King referred to as the giant triplets of evil(militarism, racism, and poverty), but also on effective tools to create change in the community. We were blessed have a crew of super talented, dynamic facilitators from some of our closet ally organizations including Anton Flores from Alterna, Allie McCullen from Georgia Students for Public Higher Education, Dawn Gibson from Atlanta Indymedia, Charmaine Davis from Working Women 9-5, Jeremy Foreman from Hands On Southeast Georgia, and Pablo Paredes from the Bay Area American Friends Service Committee kept the energy high, and the information flowing. I was surprised at the amount of information participants were able to soak up. During youth report backs I remember thinking, "dang, these youth are ready to facilitate the workshops that they just got out of!"

Every social movement has used art to express ideas. Some so art is the essence of human expression. We've all had moments when art spoke to us in ways a speech could never do. Art as an Agent for Change worked with WonderRoot Community Art Center to put together a program Saturday night called, "The Art of Activism" and they invited youth to plug their talents into it. I gotta say it was by far the dopest thing I've every seen AAC put together. Not only was there a barrage of amazing spoken word, music performances, and youth putting their talents out in front of folks, there was also live painting going down during the show.Folks were just blown away by the work of artist Corey Barksdale.

We ended the night with a big bonfire with smores, and a lot of great conversation at the lovely landtrust.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Ryan Harvey Plays Atlanta!

Yesterday Ryan Harvey's, "Ordinary Heroes" tour rolled through Atlanta. AFSC Atlanta was super excited to support the show and have an information table set up. The show was at Wonderroot Community Art Center and drew a pretty solid crowd of young folks.

It wasn't my first Ryan Harvey show, so it was definitely no surprise to see how captivated the crowd was by Ryan's ability to tell a stories with strong, astute political analysis, while rocking a distinguished vocal flow. I've come to really enjoy watching folks react to Ryan's music for the first time.

Often art can cut through someone's apathy to help them not only understand an issue that seems complicated, but also believe that they can create the change they want to see in the world or their communities; Ryan's music seems to have that effect on folks, it often forces those in the audience to change up their lens a bit.

During his set Ryan went out of his way to encourage folks to attend this year's, "Be The Change" youth convergence , which is being held July 29-31 in Atlanta. We had information on other projects to we gave out to attendees and we also had homemade posters on hand for donation, with all the proceeds going to "Be The Change" scholarships. Ryan also mention a project that he co-founded called Civilian Soldier Alliance , an organization that supports resistance to war and occupation with in the ranks of the military.

We will be adding some video footage in the next two days, so come back and check it out!

...and here's that promised footage!






Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

2011 "It's My Life" Art Opening A Beautiful Success!!

This past Saturday our downtown office hosted the opening for the Student Career Alternative Program's 2011 youth arts show. All of the pieces on display in the gallery were submitted by 13-19 year olds for SCAP's 2nd Annual "It's My Life" Youth Arts Contest. The evening featured visual art on display, performances from students who submitted in music, video, and writing, and of course the awards ceremony for the contest. We also enjoyed performances from Dejah Ault and last year's music winner, Iqbal Chowdhury.

Our goal was to create space to showcase some of Atlanta's talented youth, possibly provide some new windows of opportunity, and to get folks really thinking about the themes that inspired each piece.

High school teachers and counselors all over the Atlanta Metro were invited to participate by passing along the contest information to their students. We ended up with submissions from 16 different Atlanta area high schools this year! We also had a great diversity in entries, including writing, visual art, music, and video. Every student who entered received a certificate and a year membership card to Wonderroot Community Arts Center, with access to classes, a studio, a darkroom, an event space, and more.

The contest challenged students to create pieces inspired by one of four themes:

What does militarization take away from your education?

What is your vision of a peaceful and sustainable world?

How can you act for local and global justice?

What are your non-military career paths and dreams?

We had some pretty amazing entries this year! Over the course of the next week or so, look out for photos from the contest on this blog. We'll be working on posting every submission on the blog and website.

Turnout at the event was really great, and I must admit that most of us that do this work on the regular were feeling the warm fuzzies all night after seeing all the kids present their work, the proud look in parents' eyes, and all the smiles from folks that came out to support! The art opening was a reminder to me that there is proof that folks as young as 13 are not only more than capable of developing a deep analysis of the big issues that affect their daily lives, but they're also fully capable of presenting their solutions to the world's problems.

The "It's My Life" youth art exhibit will be up until April 15th. Come by the second floor of 60 Walton Street downtown to check it out. Much of the art is also for sale, with the proceeds going directly to the student-artists. In addition, anyone who would like to is invited to come out to the closing reception Friday April 15th from 6-8pm. Please contact Erica at erica.scap@gmail.com with any questions.

Finally, congratulations to the winners!

Grand Prize Winner ($100cash!): Joan Bedinger, writing
Education Award (Best Response to Theme 1): Aisha Davis, video
Visionary Award (Best Response to Theme 2): Nicolaas Rashad Turner, mixed media
Justice Award (Best Response to Theme 3): Darrin A. Pope, mixed media
Career Award (Best Response to Theme 4): China Burlison, writing
Artistic Technique Award: Saul Palos, mixed media
Originality Award: Amanda Dolan, photography
Changing Hearts and Minds Award: Gloria Johnson, writing
Creative Solutions Award: Midrell Fitzgerald, graphic design
Judges' Choice Award: Clifford Hopgood, music

THANK YOU to the team of graduate students who took photos and footage of the event. They are working on a short but exciting documentary about SCAP's work, which will be featured at a film screening in the next few months. (More info to come!)
THANK YOU to our esteemed panel of judges: Alice Lovelace from AFSC, Dejah Ault representing SCAP, Valerie Love from Sam Flax, and Kuukua Wilson representing Wonderroot Community Arts Center.
THANK YOU to Willy's Mexicana Grill and Grandmothers for Peace for providing food and drinks for the event.
And THANK YOU to all of our sponsors that donated prizes for the event. Because of you, we were able to award 10 artists with individual unique prizes!

Sponsors:
Sam Flax
Wonderroot Community Art Center
All Fired Up
A Cappella Books
Criminal Records
Utrecht
Blick art materials


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

SCAP Opens New Doors Of Possibilities For Tri Cities Students

On Tuesday November 3oth Student Career Alternatives Program(SCAP) was invited to spend a lunch period with students at Tri Cities High School to discuss and explore the many under promoted post high school options.

We've been invited to a lot of schools this year for lunch room tabling or career/resource fairs. We usually have students attention for about 60 seconds and we're competing with their lunch or with dozens of other exhibits. We often leave questioning how much information we were able to really transmit to students.

The Tri Cities Counseling staff does it different. They promoted our visit ahead of time and gave students an opportunity to sign up to spend 30 minutes with us. We were given the opportunity to really talk about how and why SCAP started, and ways in which the prison and military industrial complexes impact our bodies, minds, and communities.

It was great to be able to really spend time explaining to kids how some of the more popular post high school options we promote like Americorps, WWOOF, and apprenticing work. We also got to promote our upcoming art contest(One of our winners from last year, Lisa Bi, was @ the session!) and offer kids a free membership to WonderRoot Community Art Center!

Feedback from students who came out was great. It was clear that many of the students present were hearing about options that had not been presented to them in the past, and they were hearing an alternative perspective on the benefits of military service. I know that when I was in high school most of my peers reached out to that which seemed in the realm of possibility. That realm was often filled with the options that were being presented in school, in my community, and on tv. Sadly for many of my peers options were limited to the military, college, minimum wage, or criminal activity.

Opening new doors of possibility is what SCAP aims to do, and this past Tuesday, we did it well:)

When I got back to my e-mail at the office today I got an Email from the Counselor that set up our session, Anne Davis. Anne wrote up a little feature on our visit for the Tri Cities Website!
Check it out:
https://sites.google.com/a/tricitieshigh.org/www/administration/counseling-news/considersocialjusticeserviceasapostsecondaryoption

Big Thanks To Anne Davis! We are really pumped about going back to Tri Cities!!

For those interested in our updated, "It's My Life" alternative career resource visit:
http://scapatl.org/page1/page1.html


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Atlanta, Prepare Yourself!!

Our pilot program, "Be The Change Curriculum" just keeps getting more and more interesting. This week we had the pleasure of pairing young Atlanta artists and community organizers with one of seven high school student groups.

Our goal was to help each student group create a stronger analysis of the issue they had chosen to address, sharpen their focus, explore community resources, develop clear next steps, and individual accountability.

We pretty much lucked out and roped in an amazing crew of young dynamic organizers. We had WonderRoot Community Art Center Co-founder Chris Appleton, WonderRoot program manager Kwajelyn Jackson, Sierra Club field organizer Erin Glynn, Student Career Alternatives Program organizer Josie Figueroa, LGBTQ advocate Christina Vega, Living Walls organizer and street artist Monica Campana, and myself each took on a group for 90 minutes before coming back together to and let each student group present their next steps.

We don't want to let all the details out about what each group is planning organizing in the coming months but I will say that everyone present was pretty excited about the campaigns that each group is getting closer to launching.

Atlanta, prepare yourself for an unstopable force.

Monica, Chris, Kwajelyn, Josie, Christina, and Erin
Thanks You,Thank You, Thank You!!! Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to spend with Horizons students. You all made a strong impression and your impact on the students campaign work was felt:)




Tim Franzen
America Friends Service Committee

"It's My Life" Art Contest, Huge Success!!!!

We've been promoting the Student Career Alternative's, "It's My Life" contest across the metro area since January with an underlying fear that no submissions would come in.
High School Art and English teachers in Gwinett, Cobb, Fulton, and Dekalb Counties were all invited to participate by passing along the contest information to their students.

The contest challenged students to create art works inspired by one of four themes:
"Young People Acting for Local and Global Change"
"Your Vision of a Peaceful and Sustainable Future"
"Non-Military Career Paths and Dreams"
"Is America Addicted to War? If so, How Does it Affect you?"

There five art mediums that students could submit entries in:
Music
Essays/Short Stories/Poetry
Photography
Graphic Design
Painting/Mixed Media

Prizes promoted were:
1st place in each medium: 12 month membership to WonderRoot Community Art center along with a very special, funded six month mentorship with a successful artist in that medium.
2nd place in each medium was a $50. gift card to Sam Flax art supply store, donated by Sam Flax!!!!

Then there was an over grand prize of $100. cash.

Our Goal was to provide an opportunity to showcase some of Atlanta's talented youth, possibly provide some new windows of opportunity, and to get folk to really think about some of the themes that each piece was to be inspired by.

Well, during the first week of March all of our worries about light submissions evaporated as we were overwhelmed by phone calls by students, parents, and teachers about the contest. We were invited to come out to more high schools to talk about SCAP and the contest then we could cover. It was pretty amazing to be invited to so many schools to talk about SCAP, many remember that it was just last year that it was like pulling teeth to get school faculty to return a phone call from SCAP. Some administrators even laughed us off their campuses. For the first time ever we were in a position to have to turn down invitations to high school due to capacity, clearly an issue we must address.
By March 15th, the contest deadline, we had 63 amazing entries all worthy of being part of our three week, "It's My Life" exhibit at WonderRoot. As we went through all of the entries that came from a dozen different metro area schools it was clear that the judges of the contest were going to have a difficult time picking winners.

Our panel of judges where:
Joey Arbuckle with Sam Flax
Kwajelyn Jackson with WonderRoot
Haley Murphy with Student Career Alternatives
Jo A Peterson, a professor with Savannah College of Art and Design
Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, renowned painter, photographer, and writer

On Saturday March 20th we held our art opening and awards ceremony at WonderRoot. Turn out was wonderful. We had artists, SCAP members, parents, teachers, students, and other community members come out for the event. One of the highlights was live performances by extremely talented high school students, Aaron Cooper, Iqbal Chandbury, Manuel Allison, and Britnie Valentine.

After performances everyone that entered the contest was given a certificate of participation and invited to get a picture taken next to their art work.

After certificates were given out and pictures were taken Andy Fritz, our emcee for the night, called everyone together and introduced the judges who announced the winners.

Grand Prize
Samara Abdulla- None-military career paths and dreams-Essay.

First Prize
Photography
Lisa Bi – Awakened By Sleepless Nights
Mixed Media
Khris Dixon - Survivors Story
Music
Iqbal Chandbury – One Rhyme
Graphic Design

Michelle Partogi – Peace Starts With Saving One Person
Writing
Wesley Harmon – A Soldier’s Tale

Second Prize
Photography
Courtney Seale - Sacrifice
Mixed Media
Erin Foster – Affected Youth
Music
Aaron Cooper - Fatherless
Graphic Design

Julia Kim – Hello, My Name is Peace
Writing
Manuel Allison – Young People For Local and Global Change

In addition to the 1st,2nd, and grand prize winners WonderRoot extended the offer of a free year long membership to every student that entered the contest!!
We plan to chronicle all of the winners on this blg in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

ALSO!!! Please stop by WonderRoot between now and April 11th to view the art exhibit!!

WonderRoot:
www.wonderroot.org

Sam Flax:
samflaxsouth.com

Student Career Alternatives Program:
scapatl.org


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee