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 ongoing production of COVID Stories – A Digital Memoir From The Pandemic, a community storytelling project that documents this critical time in our history.

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.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a virtual rendition of Theatre in the X's “West Philly Play,” a social justice people's theatre. Via community play sessions on Zoom, stories will be shared by individuals involved in the 52nd Street standoff with police following the uprisings sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Community members will share their experiences with the gentrification of their neighborhoods. These videos will be recorded and be available publicly on Theatre in the X's website and will also serve as research for the creation of a 2021 in-person “West Philly Play.”