Community Storytelling

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support the creation of a social justice theatre piece about educators' and students' visions for educational transformation in Philadelphia. Stories will be collected via story circles that document the beliefs and experiences of students and educators about the dehumanization of the education system. Using storytelling and theater as a cultural strategy, Teacher Action Group and Philadelphia Student Union will propel the movement to rid schools of policing, cultivate intergenerational solidarity, and amplify the need for systemic change in education.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support the disParities Media Project, a pilot media-making project that exposes the structural inequities affecting families with children in Norristown and Pottstown, where over 50% of the residents are Black and Brown. In partnership with ACLAMO and The Urban League, Children First will amplify the stories and lived experiences of these communities in search of justice and change.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support Facebook Live broadcasts staffed daily by Chester community locals to discuss critical issues facing the community, give voice to the residents, connect people with resources, provide health guidelines, promote community initiatives, and showcase the assets of this underrepresented neighborhood.

Amistad Law Project (ALP) will use the 2020 Community Voices grant to amplify the voices of people in communities impacted by mass incarceration and policing. In response to the uprising, the project will highlight and promote the voices of directly impacted people in the work to create alternatives to policing and reimagine the institutions and practices that lead to safer communities. ALP will train community members to use media and media-making to tell their stories of safety and alternatives to policing such as unarmed first responders trained in de-escalation techniques.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support the launch of an online journal for essential discourse that connects media and media-making to historic and contemporary movements for social change. This journal will predominantly feature content guided and created by Black, Brown, Latinx and/or Indigenous artists and community organizers.