Be The Change Day 3

To be honest day three was the day I had been most nervous about. Our goal was to have youth self facilitate session focused on creating a campaign around an issue they want to change in their communities. These sessions have proven stressful in years past when most participants were college students, how would middle and high school students work together to create unifying projects?

They actually did quite well. I must admit that once they got to flowing out ideas they found themselves at conscientious with an ease experienced organizers often don't have most of the time, and their ideas were super fresh. One challenge the group had to overcome was picking an issue to focus on. This was especially difficult because we had just spent the weekend articulating the connections between all systems of oppression, repression, and violence.

After much discussion youth chose public education as the issue they want to focus on. The highlighted that a campaign around demanding a fair, just, and equitable public education system in Georgia will of course include conversations around military spending, undocumented immigrants access to education, education access for the disabled, and the school to prison pipeline.

I wasn't sure how down this group would be to really make next steps, but they were. The group unanimously decided to meet again in August to discuss next steps on a campaign!

I believe that one of the greatest challenges for organizers is to get out of the way. We often struggle to create space for new people to grab the mic, yet we find ourselves annoyed at the workload we're left with at the end of the day. Be The Change Youth Convergence is about not only building community, educating ourselves, and sharing tools, it's about passing the pic and lifting new leaders up. Sometimes we have to be okay with following new leaders, even when they don't walk just like us.

Be The Change Youth Convergence was a big success thanks to everyone that made it happen. All the volunteers, the facilitators, local businesses that contributed food, the Horizons school, and of course all the amazing youth who came out by choice to be the change our communities need right now. THANKS YA'LL!!!!


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

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

Be The Change 2011 Day 1

On April 4, 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a groundbreaking speech in which he famously made the link between the war in Vietnam and the “giant triplets” of militarism, racism, and poverty. Unfortunately, his message resounds all too clearly today with regards to our involvement in Iraq and elsewhere, and the link between our country’s militarism abroad and poverty at home. In Georgia, our communities spiral further into poverty while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq approach the decade mark . Young people see no option to pay for school other than joining the military, while others end up getting caught up in the prison system. Meanwhile, 35,000 four-year scholarships to colleges and universities could have been given for what we spend on just one day of the war. There is a new sense of hope in 2011, particularly among young people, yet that energy and excitement must be harnessed and focused for any of this hope to materialize.

The American Friends Service Committee and the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition are organized a three-day convergence for Georgia youth that created space for youth to imagine the Georgia that they want to live in, grasp organizing tools that lifted up past movements in the South, and build community with each other.

Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech will serve as the “grounding text” for the weekend. The speech was a great way to star conversations around the deep connections between systems of violence and oppression that control our bodies, minds and communities. How does recent anti-immigration legislation, like HB87, have anything to do with the war in Afghanistan? How does the foreclosure crisis, or the recent drastic cuts the public education have anything to do with the prison industrial complex? King's groundbreaking speech proved extremely relevant when exploring these questions.

This year's Youth Convergence was like no other. In years past we've held the youth convergence at Koinonia Farms in south Georgia, and it's been attended by mostly college aged youth that had some experience with activism. While we all REALLY love Koinonia, we wanted to do something different this year. There was a feeling that we needed to reach out to younger folks. So we decided to exclusively outreach to high school aged youth in Atlanta, we focused on schools we had relationships though out Student Career Alternatives Program(SCAP) and several Boys and Girls Clubs. We decided to hold the convergence at the Horizon's School in Atlanta, who we've had the pleasure of working with in the past.

Well this past Friday, day one of the convergence, we were all super excited to have a crowd of mostly high school aged youth, along with several middle school students, and a few college aged youth.

There was a little bit of tension in the first few hours of Friday's program, most of the folks had never met before and I won't lie, I thought it was going to be a challenge to get folks to come out their shell and take the risk to put themselves out there to each other....I was wrong.

The King Center facilitated an ice breaker and a presentation on Dr. Kings, "Beyond Vietnam" speech, and by the time dinner started folks were really mixing it up with each other. Nothing prepared me for what went down after dinner. Art as an Agent for Change has facilitated an hour long ice breaker at every Be The Change Youth convergence and this year was no different. They asked folks to develop a short skip, each group with a different topic, with topics being, militarism, racism, poverty, and hope. The skips were to be intertwined with each other with hope going last. At the end of the hope skit unplanned spontaneous singing just happen, and it was beautiful. Friday night was a highlight for me, I'll admit it brought tears to my eyes. Check out the video:



Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

AFSC Youth Organizers Converge In The Bay Area

AFSC Staff from Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Baltimore, Oakland, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle came together July 20-23 in the Bay area to explore ways to improve the impact of our work and create more ways to cross pollinate our local work. The common thread between staff who came out to the meeting was our youth focus.

The meeting was hosted by AFSC's Pablo Paredes who's doing some pretty dynamic youth work in the Bay. Pablo has brought together an amazing group of young folks who have founded, or birthed the 67 Suenos movement. 67 Suenos youth organizers played a huge role in developing the weekend agenda, preparing meals, and keeping everyone energized. BIG ups to 67 Suenos crew!

I'm super pumped about the projects that will be coming out of this gathering. Look for more news about our Migrant Youth Voice Project making bigger national waves, and we also are beginning initial plans to roll out a youth organized national tour call...LOVE BOMBS!

We also had the chance to show the locally produced short documentary, "Last Best Option" which focuses on SCAP work we've been doing in Atlanta this year. Check it out:

LAST BEST OPTION from T.J. Hicks on Vimeo.

There was also talk of doing a 2013 national youth conference that would be youth organized, youth attended, and youth lead! So we're on the move ya'll!


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

A Look at AFSC Work in LA

On Monday July 18th I had the pleasure of getting a tour of just some of the work that Crystal Gonzales facilitates in the LA area. We started in South Central LA, and eventually made our way the AFSC's downtown office.

Crystal has worked with youth in South Central to develop, design, and build community gardens. Some may not know that South Central in the largest food desert in the country. There are fast food joints spread out and tons of corner stores with really poor quality food that lacks the nutrients humans need to thrive. The community gardens Crystal organizes around are perfect spaces to begin conversations about building stronger communities. If youth can take a piece of discarded dirt, a chunk of an abandoned lot, and turn it into a thriving, organic, nutritious food producing garden then I suppose they can facilitate other changes they want to see in their communities.


Crystal also brought me to AFSC's downtown office. I was excited to discover that they also do an art contest for youth, and they just happen to have all the pieces up. I did a quick run with my flip cam of all the pieces so if you really want to see each one, be prepared to press pause a lot.


Crystal also brought me to Homegirl Cafe, which is attached to Homeboy industries. I gotta say that touring Homeboy industries had a huge impact on me. The process by which criminalized youth have to go thru to emerge so difficult that most fall through the cracks. I've experienced this first hand, and lost a lot of friends that didn't get out so easy. Homeboy/Homegirl Industies really understands not only the need to rehabilitating the thinking process that keeps us stuck, but also understands that need for direct services. "Nothing stops a bullet like a job" is one of their sayings. Atlanta badly needs something like Homeboy Industries.

I should also mention that Crystal took me by this space called the Metabolic Lab, and I must say they're doing some pretty rad stuff there. If you're in LA, or just visiting, make sure you peep it.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee