Afrofuture Youth
A Detroit based, youth lead initiative, creating worlds to support black life through Afrofuturism via art, tech, media, and healing. Our resistance stems from creation.
Leader
Adrienne Ayers
Location
19556 Grand River Ave Detroit, MI 48223
About the project
Afrofuture Youth is a Detroit based youth program centering the experiences of black youth in Detroit through allowing them to lead the way in co-creating a new world through the lens of Afrofuturism. It involves the implementation of a curriculum which involves healing modalities, Political Education sessions facilitated by fellow youth and adult community members, and youth mobilizing to empower youth to develop soultion oriented responses to social inequities. The result equips youth with the tools and start of an developing analysis to envision and create a future where lives of African descent can not only survive, but thrive.
Through partipation in Afrofuture Youth, black youth will gain an understanding how to move through internalized traumas through an introduction to healing modalities including but not limitied to ancestor connection, meditation and yoga. Once youth have identifed ways to move through truama, they'll then get to the root of why those and other specific truamas in black communities exist as they do. Through Political Education Sessions facilitated by fellow youth and adults in community, youth will learn about various social inequities that stem from racism (direct, indirect, and environmental), sexism, transphobia, homophobia, respectability politics, rape culture, and more.
During the mobilization phase, once a week, Youth will gain a hands on understanding of how to find solution oriented ways to shift community through the arts, tech, and their specific passions. Youth will use art modalities to create a blueprint that will serve as the vision they have for their 'Afrofuture' which will be apart of a youth curated art show. Our final and ongoing step will be using the artistic blueprints they've created to actually manifest their vision and create physical and sustainable change through the arts and tech by continuing to work one on one with local artists and organizers.
The Steps
January 7th, 2019 -Purchase supplies, decorations, and library
January 21st, 2019 -February 4th Set up Classroom
February 11th, 2019 -Kickoff/First Day of Program
Why we‘re doing it
The core problem Afrofuture Youth is trying to solve is the lack of space and opportunites for youth to envision and physically be able to build a more progressive world. Not only do not many spaces exist that encourage youth to build this world, but the spaces that exist don't always allow youth to lead through solution oriented aproaches with healing as the foundation, have autonomy respected, or develop an analysis of social inequties that create the issues. My idea is also a response to the issues of social inequiteis that create disadvantages for black communities through lack of resources, lack of respect for culture and autonmy, and education. Through an Afrofuturism framework, youth will tackle community issues that impact black lives on physical and emotional levels, by building alternatives to that reality through the arts and tech.