The ASVGP is a summer Arts & Garden Program designed to engage youth and community in a hands on learning, gardening and creating art.
Leader
Akusika Nkomo-Mackey
Location
1697 East 81st. Street Cleveland, OH 44103
Our goals are to enhance our 9 station Learning Gardens and have a fun dance experience outside as well. The stations include 2 solar displays, our dye garden, shade gardens, veggie and herbs garden area along with a squash patch. We also want to re-install our solar hut for display, build a cob oven. and install a floating dance floor priced at Home Depot. We encourage everyone who come by Africa House to take part in one of our many dance or drum workshops. We want to introduce teens to the art of hand dance or partnering dance.Please help us create a fantastic summer experience at Africa House for youth, neighbors and our community at large.
Your support will enable us to complete our projects and buy the supplies we need to build our solar hut and cob oven. We will also beable to enhance our 9 station learning gardens and install a floating floor so that we can promote dance as an art choice.
LIST
Ms Nkomo Mackey obtained a degree in Dance from Rutgers University and have studied Dance Therapy in Chicagos Columbia College and came home to obtain a MA in Expressive Arts aka Creative Arts as therapy from CSU. Ms. Nkomo Mackey's vision is for Africa House International to be a focal point for art and educational work. We have all be so stressed with the covid-19 pandemic and our own experiances in the year 2020. This is the time to come together to support each other and grow as a community after such an hard year. We are working to create more opportunities for familes and the children to get out of staying in the house and learn here in the garden. At Africahouse we are growing with the community. The ASVGP is a project that invites families to come out together to experience interactive education that is fun and hopefully inspiring. We want to inspire the community to start and grow their own garden, feel supported to dance more and create more art.
The African Solar Village Green Project was inspired by Dr. Willie R. Mackey and was originally called the ASVOP or the African Solar Village Outreach Project. The African Solar Village Outreach Project is in Dr. Mackey's honor and we are continuing this work with the ASVGP as it promotes our S.T.E.A.M. initiative. This strategy helps to incorporate Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math which is the mission of Africa House International. We need your support to create a fun learning experience for the youth and their families who participate in our program.
The ASVGP provides an opportunty for Ms Nkomo Mackey to give back to the youth in the community. She says that the teenagers, particularly the boys that come to Africa House to work, remind her of her son who was murdered here in Cleveland May 28, 2007. The children that come to work are mentored by Ms. Nkomo Mackey and her team. Students of differents ages can learn to establish goals they set for themselves and make a clear focus steps towards a positive idea of success. She feels that the STEAM concepts, thoroughly tied into the GREEN Movement that promotes producing art through science and creates a great learning opportunity for the youth.