Camp Sojourner & Girls Leadership Camp: Is a nonprofit leadership program for Philadelphia girls. The program focuses on team-building, leadership development, creative arts, and appreciation of nature. Camp Sojourner offer girls the chance to get out of the city for a one-week sleepaway camp experience and then to get involved in our year-round mentoring, service projects, creative arts, and leadership activities.
Racism is a Sickness: Tieshka Smith, a Germantown-based photographer and blogger, is the creator of the Racism Is A Sickness art and social change project. Conceived out of her own personal frustration with all of the news of police brutality cases and rollbacks of legal protections like the Voting Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws and regulations, I want to engage as many people as I can in a conversation about healing the insidious and devastating effects of racism. The goal of Racism Is A Sickness is twofold: One, I will be using images and personal stories of Philadelphians from all walks of life to challenge racism and its insidious effects.
Ali Michael: Ali Michael, Ph.D., is the Director of K-12 Consulting and Professional Development at the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators. She is the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry and Education (2015, Teachers College Press): a book designed to support teachers in the long term and personal process of understanding the role that race plays in their lives and in their classrooms. She is also co-editor of Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories (2015, Stylus Press). She and her partner, Michael, live in Philadelphia and consider questions of race and education on a daily basis in the raising of their two children.
Need in Deed: Since its founding in 1987, Need in Deed’s mission has been to use the classroom to prepare young people for civic responsibility and service to others, enabling them to become capable, contributing members of society. Working in public, charter, independent and faith-based schools, we train and support teachers as they adopt a teaching and learning strategy known as service-learning. Through a yearlong project, students gain an understanding of the practical applications of schoolwork – reading, math, social studies and science – as they use these skills to make positive, productive responses to challenging issues of concern to them in their schools and communities.
Philly Coalition for R.E.A.L. Justice: (REAL = Racial, Economic And Legal) was voted into being at the 3rd Ferguson to Philly Town Hall Meeting January 6. They are Philadelphia based #Blacklivesmatter activists fighting against police terror in Philadelphia.
Theater of the Oppressed Trainings: is geared towards individuals seeking facilitation skills and training in Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to improve their ability to effectively engage diversity issues and community dialogue. Forum Theatre is a participatory theatre technique originated by Augusto Boal that can be applied to all kinds of work committed to social action and transformation—educational, political, creative, cultural and beyond.