On a sunny Sunday afternoon in April, 10 kids from across Northwest Philadelphia gathered together to create a Zine documenting their time with the Philly Children’s Movement. The ‘Zine’, a fun, kid-friendly, magazine collage, is to be a submission in the upcoming issue in #CritEdPol (a journal focusing on critical education policy), discovering the “Beautiful Experiments” around the area. While adults were there to assist with any technical things… the kids pretty much ran the show. At the forefront were Alex & Maya, co-editors running the design layout of the Zine. Throughout the whole day, they were busy at work piecing stories together and weaving them into the collective PCM journey.
While the editors looked at the project as a whole, other PCM kids worked more on content for the magazine. Reece, a PCM member since the beginning, told the story of PCM and it’s evolution through her eyes with pictures, videos, and her own descriptions of events! She look through archival photos and reflected on different marches she’s been to and what her signs say. Many of her favorites include “Be Kind”, “Love”, and “Black Lives Matter”.
On the other side of the room, Ava and Abby made a Social Media Poster (shown below), showcasing the many hashtags involved with PCM. While doing this, they also displayed their creative and artistic talents, decorating the poster board with a rainbow of watercolors.
Now obviously it wouldn’t be a PCM gathering without some outdoor fun! After a play break on this beautiful day (featured below) with some yummy snacks (of course!!), the kids got back to work!
Ava made a powerpoint discussing cape-making, a huge tradition amongst the PCM kids. Instead of carrying posters all day long, during marches, PCM kids make capes to wear! In her presentation, she discusses how this tradition came about, why she likes to wear capes at marches, and the importance of capes to PCM. To her, this is a fun activity that helps her express herself and what she is fighting for.
Lastly, Maddy worked diligently throughout this whole process, with a few stops for race car games, on a photo documentary portion of the zine. Combined with photos from past PCM events, Maddie added snitbits of powerful images and words taken from magazines, to create the “collage look” that pertinent in a Zine. All together, she created a ten page collection, encapsulating major themes in PCM from women’s empowerment to kid’s education, and racial justice.
At the end of the day, the kids of PCM pulled together an amazing project, one that this organization will be able to keep as their own. Everyone has their own story of PCM. Documenting that is extremely powerful. Not only does it tell us where we’ve been, it can tell us where we are heading.
