Building A Creative Community: Lessons Learned from Efforts to Expand a Youth Social Justice Writing Internship in a Pandemic
Heather M. Sloane, PhD, LISW & Lori Lux | September 23 | 10:15-11:15 AM
Topic: Art, Programming | Knowledge Level: Beginner
This is a first-hand account of efforts made to expand a social justice writing mentoring internship during the COVID-19 changes to universities and public schools starting March of 2020. Fearless Writers was created 5 years ago as a way to introduce interprofessional college students to the lived experience of people from different neighborhoods with the hope of countering the impact of neighborhood segregation common within the United States while also fostering high school student voice and advocacy. Fearless Writers serves as a creative writing community and a space for youth research on topics like neighborhood segregation, gun violence, and the historic contribution of the Black community to the Toledo area. Over the past year, the group created small written pieces as evidence of thoughts and feelings shared by members during a time of health and racial crisis. The presenters will reflect on the experience of continuing Fearless Writers in a virtual format for academic year 2020/2021 with the risk of not knowing what would happen to the project that was constantly shifting while the local and state government were scrambling to plan for community safety. The audience will have an opportunity to consider the importance of youth voices to an understanding of social injustice and learn about creative solutions to raising awareness about important issues to youth in our communities.
Presentation Objectives:
· Consider the importance of creative expression to developing political agency
· Discuss the importance of youth perspective on healing after an international health crisis
· Describe the impact a writing community can have on social separation and act as an intervention to raise awareness about implicit bias