SociGraff

SociGraff is a twofold project designed for urban youth, combining community contribution and artistic expression. The project should take place over the course of one academic year through weekly after school meetings, and is intended for about 20 students in their junior year of high school. By combining two seemingly unrelated forms of community involvement: legal and artistic, SociGraff will teach students teamwork and empower them with the self-esteem that they can make lasting differences in their communities. Initially (in the first half of the academic year), students will be asked to hold dialogues with each other and conduct interviews with local community members in order to identify the most urgent problem in their school system (i.e. dropouts, violence, drugs, insufficient learning materials, etc). Next, we will hold numerous brainstorming meetings for students to come up with at least 2 legally feasible solutions for the identified educational problem. Eventually, students will prepare a face to face presentation with their local educational representative (super intendant) of their solutions and will learn how to implement their solutions in reality by using legal means. The ultimate goal is to have the students' work reviewed for permanent legal adoption in their local schools. The second half of SociGraff (second part of the academic year) will revolve around artistic expression, with the students' project being to design and spray a legal graffiti mural of the initiative they developed in the first half of the year. The mural will be painted in their community to represent the community involvement in achieving solutions and the contribution the students made. Before the completion of the mural at the end of the term, SociGraff will hold graffiti courses and develop artistic ideas with students. The SociGraff team is made up of socially conscious undergraduates and college graduates with experience in education, political science and of course, art. SociGraff wants students to step into the future with a sense of accomplishment, confidence in their own abilities, and pride in both their artistic and community initiatives.