Bio & Self-Assessment
Bio
My role within the three-part "I AM BEACH" initiative and series is to serve as a liaison between youth artists, community members and stakeholders to make Identity happen. As a community member, poet, artist and someone who has worked directly in Rainier Beach High School with youth for two years, I have a vested interest in this project. Specifically, I will write a grant for an Opportunity Grant with King County and once funding is secured, hand off this project to youth, artists and community members who will carry it out to completion. I desire to create alongside my neighbors as we build the identity of our community into something beautiful, bursting with hope, joy, culture and the tenacity to survive and to do so with empowered dignity.
Community Selection
I selected Rainier Beach because it is the community I have worked in for 2 years. I originally came here as a youth worker and had no idea I'd be welcomed as a teacher, neighbor, sister and friend. In many ways this community selected me just as much as I selected it. I have enjoyed walking with youth and families as they sought justice in transportation, truancy and violence in our community.
Challenges
The biggest challenge in creating this project is knowing that it is valuable but may never come to fruition. During the middle of this project, I officially decided to move home to Michigan because of the cost of living in Seattle. I have been struggling with my "realness" to this community because I am leaving in a time where this project could actually happen. Currently, I am holding meetings with like-minded friends to see if this project could indeed be spearheaded on the ground by their efforts with myself as the liaison behind it. I hope to create a project like this in Flint, where I soon will reside. I know that Flint has some similar challenges when it comes to identity of youth of color and is currently wrestling with an enormous environmental justice. This relates to challenges because while I hand the the reigns of this project off to one group, I hope to create something else in a space where I know almost no one. I look forward to the growing pains that both of these initiatives are bound to face and the journey I will be on in the process.
Worldview
Socioeconomic structures affect Rainier Beach's worldview. Rainier Beach is a community that is proportionally poorer than any other neighborhood in Seattle. It has traditionally had low-performing schools and growing violence within the community both due to gang violence and police brutality. It is plagued by the traumas of poverty, racism and violence which has been normalized by many youth in the community. The youth explain that they are used to being looked at based on their race, religion( many are of Muslim faith), gender and/or sexual orientation. However, there is great resilience as their heart-set and mindset. The family structure that is unique within each culture group within Rainier Beach is strong and supportive, which fosters young people into pushing past personal apathy, low expectations and keep looking for the more-ness that they know they deserve.
Major Success Factors
One major success factor will be that after applying for Opportunity Grants within King County, that the "I Am" series and initiative will have the funding to become a reality. I plan to write the grant from a distance and once the grant is accepted, the initiative will become a grassroots youth-led project. Besides all of that, the biggest sign of success will be the creation of the three-part art installations created by youth artists and community members, that will inherently build positive identity within the youth and Rainier Beach as a whole. This occurrence will propel youth into creating and visioning more projects that will affect not only Rainier Beach but Seattle and our society at large.
Barriers
Major barriers will be engaging with stakeholders early on who additionally have vested interest in youth initiatives in Rainier Beach and additionally have partnerships with the sites this projects seek to implement in. This is a possibility because many of the stakeholders possess those requirements but it will take time and persistence to make this happen. Additionally, recruiting youth artists , artist mentors and board of directors will be a difficult task due to scheduling conflicts and personality differences as well as general apathy that many people possess when it comes to carrying out major projects. The biggest barrier will be finding some key players who will be project directors who will recruit youth and other participants. I am hoping to connect with Freedom Schools this summer as I work there and recruit youth leadership as well as community leadership so that there will be a planning team set up by the time this project begins visioning for it's first steps in the fall.