SUMMER SOCIAL JUSTICE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY 2020
The home for teen activists in Columbia & Greene counties.
Ages 13+ | July 13 - August 7, 2020
In the summer of 2020, we found ourselves in an unprecedented moment — powerful Black Lives Matter uprisings and demands to #DefundThePolice rippled across the country, amidst a viral pandemic. Our Social Justice Leadership Academy created an essential space for teens to come together safely: to gather, connect, grieve, heal, learn, play, and organize. The entire program was held outside at our River City Garden.
Scroll below to see photos from the summer and learn more about who we are. Or click to learn about…
PHOTOS & highlights FROM OUR SUMMER
CREATING OUR OUTDOOR CLASSROOM, ACKNOWLEDGING THE LAND
To prepare for the Social Justice Leadership Academy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic we transformed our garden into a full outdoor classroom: with an open air kitchen, shaded areas with distanced gathering, a mist tent, and more. The space we created together was magical. This was our first time hosting SJLA fully outdoors and on the land, so we began our summer with a land acknowledgment, recognizing with ceremony that we stand on unceded Mohican territory. And we began by asking questions about our relations: How can we be in right relationship with the land? What are the practices and qualities of good relationship - trust, communication, affection, acceptance? We also created self-care kits to help us stay healthy and during COVID and to avoid heatstroke in our sunny classroom.
RITES OF PASSAGE FOR SENIOR FELLOWS
Senior Fellows - paid teen staff - spent the first week together preparing for the arrival of their younger peers. The teens unpacked terms like consent and sexual harassment to create a safe workplace for all. Senior Fellows also learned about the fundamentals of campaigns to help lead the group, breaking down the structure for creating demands, how to link our demands to larger visions of liberation and sovereignty, and how to speak ideas powerfully. We celebrated our work by going on a kayak trip to the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse (shoutout to TJ at Hudson Paddles, and Sam with Schooner Apollonia and the Sloop Club!)
Senior Fellows also prepared for a Rites of Passage Ceremony to close the week. They were asked to create something that represented who they are as a leader and how they wanted to contribute to the collective movement for liberation. Some wrote poems, speeches, and songs, while others created visual art work. Teens were also asked to identify and research two ancestors whose path towards liberation they would continue; we heard the names of Celia Cruz, Harriet Tubman, Ida B Wells, Toni Morrison, and Malcolm X ring out. We closed the week with two concentric circles, with Senior Fellows in the middle and program leaders (adult staff) in the outer circle. With their heads bowed, one by one we spoke affirmations over them, lifting up the collective dreams we have for each others’ lives, all the support we know this work requires, and all of the protection - physically, emotionally and mentally - we need to help guide us safely through.
ALL TOGETHER NOW!
Junior Fellows joined us in week two! In our orientation we explored how language shapes our collective culture, learning about terms like colorism, adultism, ableism, ageism, and fatphobia, along with terms they were familiar with like classism, racism and homophobia. We connected these terms to common phrases we’ve all heard or said ourselves as a way of identifying microagressions that we all repeat knowingly and unknowingly. After our orientation, Senior Fellows helped lead workshops throughout the week — taking what they had learned the week before, giving feedback on how to adapt activities for younger teens, and then stepping up as co-facilitators. We began to explore the role we each play in collective movements: there are those who take care of the group through food or a listening ear, those that give speeches, those that confront oppression head on, those that connect community members to one another, and those that collect data or organize spreadsheets. We each asked, what is my kind of leadership? It was our goal to slow down together: to create space to develop our radical collective imaginations, dreaming and envisioning the worlds we want to see.
We also had our first rainy day in our fully outdoor classroom! As the rain poured down we found ourselves speaking to one another through masks and megaphones, discussing our demands over the sounds of lightning, and finally throwing in the towel, adapting to the moment by creating protest chants and makeshift beats with our fists and palms.
CEREMONY FOR GRIEF, CELEBRATION OF T STARR
In May 2020 we suffered the tragic death of Terrell Starr, a beloved teen in our community and a close member of our Kite’s Nest family who lost his life to gun violence. T Starr had a gift of making people feel seen - noticing, always, if someone was hurting or in need. He was a healer, caring for people with the most genuine kindness. At Kite’s Nest we witnessed as he came to recognize some of his own struggles in other kids and teens; he told us he wanted to provide the kind of support for others that he himself had needed, to listen unconditionally. He loved cooking meals for others, blasting music in the kitchen, growing food in the garden, learning the medicinal properties of plants, and uplifting the energy of a group. Terrell was a source of so much joy and humor, even as he battled his own hurt and anxiety. At Kite’s Nest we saw Terrell at his most playful: dancing, running outside, blowing bubbles, goofing around, making people laugh, feeling free. And we saw him in profound reflection: working to understand his own trauma and mental health struggles, reflecting on his ancestral lineage, engaging deeply with questions of inequity, injustice, incarceration, and collective liberation. Kite’s Nest was a safe place for him, a place where he was able to be his authentic, loving, curious, moody, and complex self, without judgment.
As a community heavy with grief, this year we sought ways to move through the pain of this loss together, and to find joy in remembering his incredible spirit. Our communities are often not given space physically or mentally to grieve, and many of us our searching for new relationships to grief and to ritual. So this summer we gathered in T Starr’s memory, inviting Terrell’s family and friends to join us in ceremony that we co-created in his honor. Here were some elements of our collective ceremony:
We gave offerings to the earth: youth carried the four elements of the four directions, and named those we have lost to COVID, to gun violence, and to freedom fighting.
We highlighted T Starr’s love for community care and his interest in the herbal remedies that support mental health and wellbeing. Last year at Kite’s Nest, Terrell made a medicine tincture for anxiety support. We were able to share Terrell’s tincture, made by his hands, with his loved ones.
We built a T-shaped garden memorial garden in T Starr’s honor, where we planted flowers and herbs and strawberries for the neighborhood.
We celebrated Terrell’s life with music (thank you to the Brasskill marching band that joined us) and with youthful spirits (blowing bubbles).
We built a floating prayer boat, carried by Terrell’s father, peers, and teachers, and sent out into the Hudson River.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE + RESILIENCE
In our third week together we focused on environmental and food justice and resilience. Teens learned about food crises and environmental racism, while also looking at powerful food sovereignty projects and exploring the possibilities of growing food, community care, and art as a form of direct action. We started by learning history: teens participated in a Food Justice Living Museum, a theatre activity to highlight the lineage of food justice warriors that came before us. Then we broke into three tracks:
Grow Food Not Prisons. Teens created a powerful public art and storytelling project as part of the collaborative solitary garden movement. They built a garden bed the size of a solitary confinement cell; constructed a front trellis and dyed rope with indigo, a traditional cash crop, as prison bars; and painted a public sign that said Grow Food Not Prisons. Teens told stories about incarcerated family members, and in collaboration with the Victory Bus Project, wrote letters to families with incarcerated loved ones and to their own incarcerated friends, describing the project and asking: What do you want Kite’s Nest to grow in your garden?
Take Back the Land. In this track teens connected the dots between issues of environmental justice, food sovereignty, housing, and gentrification. They engaged in a public plant installation project to raise questions like: What does it mean to beautify urban spaces? How can we maintain ownership and sovereignty of public and private spaces when gentrification is an immediate pressure?
Herbal Justice. Another group of teens worked with guest herbalists to create medicines designed to support our immune systems for COVID resilience, and to share herbal medicines with people currently behind bars. They created a sensory grounding & herbal infusion brew and a mix of herbal tea blends, packaging their creations to send to incarcerated folks in collaboration with the Victory Bus Project.
ART + PROTEST - MUSIC, DANCE, FILM, VISUAL ART
Art filled our days. The SJLA Protest Band practiced on Thursdays with Brasskill, the Hudson Valley Brass Band, who shared historic protest songs and chants from freedom movements for the youth to inherit and recreate. One of our teens - Larenz - worked with artist Livia Foldes to design and print our 2020 SJLA t-shirt! During our fourth week together we also broke into three tracks:
Visual art track, led by artist educator Xóchicoatl Bello. Teens created a mixed media mural on plywood, calling on an end to the criminal injustice system. The piece was entitled “Abolish prisons, bring our people home”. It was this group’s goal to educate and inspire action in Hudson towards the end of prison and towards community sovereignty around addressing harm. Through a 5 panel visual narrative, the map of America served as the landscape to tell the story of: (1) The roots of prisons;, (2) Racial injustice and U.S. prisons, (3) Prisons harm, not heal, (4) Build stronger communities, and (5) Our Demands. When lined up next to each other the distinct panels tell one story.
Dance track - Guest artist educator Dahsir Hausif from Alvin Aily led a dance workshop, where teens explored the emotional weather of their bodies with freestyle dance movements. They created a group dance choreography for our upcoming Housing Justice March, with each student adding a movement to the collective piece, and they practiced hip hop dance choreography to Rhianna. Our teens reflected that after so many weeks inside and away from one another because of the pandemic, it was more challenging than ever to perform in front of one another.
Film track - Guest educator Zia Anger led a film class. Teens began by sharing short videos (tik toks, music videos, etc.), and the group discussed how moving images can make us feel and how different elements of a video (music, perspective, voice, etc.) contribute to how we feel. Then we discussed what type of emotions we want to illicit with a film of our own — are we hoping to make someone cry? Laugh? Take action? As activists we asked: How do we elicit empathy? How do we move people to participate in movements, to vote, to be active in community? Then we began creating our own film: creating an outline and script, coordinating our schedule, logistics, and budget, and then diving into production. Here’s the film we produced. (Thank you to Theo for helping us edit!)
WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS
Throughout the summer we held Wellness Wednesdays - engaging in activities rooted in joy, care, and wellbeing. For example…
We went on a hike with Zebi
Nkoula Badila led a workshop called Calling in Ancestors, focused on traditional movement, songs, and jewelry-making from Africa
We partnered with the Hudson Youth Dept to go canoeing and kayaking at Oakdale (thanks Nick and Vanessa!)
Xochi and Ava led a Teen Wellness Circle
Ken and John from the Hudson Youth Dept led us on bike tours
Briggin led a print-block making workshop
And… we hired an ice cream truck to surprise the teens with sweetness! Everyone had huge smiles as we lined up and tried to predict what type of ice cream each person would choose based on their personality: creamsicle, chaco tacos, soft serve with sprinkles, or spiderman popsicle with the bubblegum eyes?
HOUSING JUSTICE MARCH
Throughout the summer we focused on the issue of housing justice. We shared stories about our own connection to housing issues, asking each other: how has housing affected you or your loved ones personally? We broke down the issues of housing in Hudson, including: extreme gentrification and displacement, limited public housing/lack of affordable housing, homelessness (10% of our school district students are homeless), and the fact that impending evictions will worsen the situation. We met with teen organizers from Community Voices Heard on a video call to find mutual inspiration, to build connection between youth organizers, and to build knowledge around how campaigns work. Then we planned our own direct action. We identified our targets, developed our demands, and explored the roles needed to execute a safe and effective direct action. We researched state-wide housing policies, wrote speeches and press releases, prepared chants and signs, shot instagram promo videos and made flyers, made phone calls to Assemblymember Didi Barrett’s office, and coordinated with local housing organizers .
Our demands: an extension of the eviction moratorium in New York State; to cancel rent for the remainder of the pandemic; to regulate short-term rentals in Hudson; to house houseless people; to make Hudson affordable for us to live and grow.
Our march came a day after the end of the New York State coronavirus eviction moratorium. Soon after the march, the eviction moratorium was extended to October. In December, a new law was passed in Hudson to regulate short-term rentals.
CLOSING APPRECIATION
WHO WE ARE - SUMMER SJLA 2020
Junior Fellows:
Ariel, Emily, Daia, Ero, Graciela, Gabby X, Juju, Kenold, Mariah, Nadia, Oliviah, Oziah, Ryleigh, Sylvain, and Travis.
Senior Fellows:
Mia, Zia, Deja, Melina, Lebron, Dezjuan, Larenz, Salma, Monique, Ava, and Jasmin.
Community Partners and Guest Educators:
Mike Alert, Char Azad, Tully, Antonia Perez, Nkoula Badila, Ntangou Badila, TJ at Hudson Paddles, Sam Merrett, Hudson Sloop Club, Schooner Apolonia, the family and friends of T. Starr, Brasskill, Livia Foldes, Dahsir Hausif, Zia Anger, Theo Anthony, Nick Zachos, Vanessa Baehr, Hudson Youth Department, Community Voices Heard.
Program Staff:
Zebi Williams: Zebi is the Educator Director at Kite’s Nest. At the age of 18 Zebi founded the Lil Ragamuffin Summer Camp in Jamaica, which grew to be recognized as one of the top arts programs in the country. Zebi has worked as a community organizer in a range of contexts, and was a founding member of the Sista-2-Sista Youth Summit. Zebi is also a Mom, an artist, a fashion designer, and a futurist.
Sharece Johnson: Sharece grew up in Hudson, NY, where she has worked with a number of youth organizations and after school programs. Sharece is an educator, musician, and singer. With appreciation for the counselors and mentors in her own life, Sharece is dedicated to being a source of strength to the young people in her community.
Jalal Sabur: Jalal is a farmer, activist, organizer, educator and herbalist. He is a co-founder of Wildseed, an emerging Black and Brown-led, feminine-centered, queerloving, earth-based community and healing sanctuary in Millerton, NY. Previously Jalal has worked with WESPAC Foundation, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Freedom Food Alliance, the Victory Bus Project, and Sweet Freedom Farm. This was Jalal’s 7th summer as a lead educator at SJLA.
Briggin Scharf: Briggin is an educator, farmworker, food justice organizer, and the Greenhouse Program Manager at Kite’s Nest. Briggin has managed elementary school gardens in San Francisco and Poughkeepsie, organized intergenerational family farm visits and cooking classes, and was a founding member of Rolling Grocer 19 - an initiative to increase access to affordable, healthy and locally-produced food in Columbia County.
Xóchicoatl Bello: Xóchi is a two-spirit queer native feminista, brujita, abolitionist, artivist, ceremonialist + earth steward from Los Angeles and southern Mexico. Xóchicoatl joins the Kite's Nest family after years as a Boston Public School educator, where their work was in bilingual education and art as a means of resistance. Xóchicoatl maintains an herbal and healing practice through la mala yerba that seeks to connect all people to socially-conscious spirit work.
Kaya Weidman: Kaya is a co-founder and Executive Director of Kite’s Nest. Kaya was a co-founder of the Germantown Community Farm, a co-founder of WGXC 90.7-FM, and a founder of the Hudson Chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice. Kaya is the administrative backbone for SJLA, provides resilience support for the staff, is an SJLA photographer and social media content creator, and a logistics guru for the final event. She joins in sometimes to lead teach-ins on movement building and supports teens to attend city council and school board meetings to make their voices heard.
Jahnessa Mackey: Jahnessa Mackey is a youth mentor, community activist, and radio host. A talented public speaker, Jahnessa was the Student Commencement Speaker for her graduation at Columbia Greene Community College in 2017. She has been a long-time radio host on WGXC: 90.7-FM, first as an intern on the popular Drive Time Radio Show, and then becoming a permanent co-host. She launched her own show Slap of Reality in September 2019. In 2020 she co-organized the Juneteenth Freedom March, which brought hundreds of people from Hudson and Catskill together in the Movement for Black Lives. She joined Kite's Nest as an educator with the Social Justice Leadership Academy, and is excited to keep organizing for justice and working with youth from her community!
Chelsea Snider: Chelsea helped to coordinated food and cook meals for the SJLA crew!
Thank you to our amazing photographers:
(Coming soon)
Thank you to all of our funders who made SJLA 2020 possible:
The North Star Fund, The Dyson Foundation, and the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation’s Fund for Columbia County. This program was also made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Arts Education Program.
THANK YOU!
To our Senior and Junior Fellows! To our program staff!
To all of our Community Partners & Guest Educators! To everyone who supported us with food!
To our incredible photographers! And for all of the funders who made SJLA 2020 possible.