The Cipher-Austin's Hip Hop Project

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Vital Stats

Chris "Gator" O

Austin, TX
  • people helped400
  • People Doing It400

The Problem

The purpose of The Cipher is to provide participants with the means to envision their future optimistically despite a challenging environment that includes high levels of school dropout and teen pregnancy. The program envisions a group of confident and engaged young people who will gain positive learning experiences, build self-esteem, improve academic performance, and expand possibilities for their future. Our project has recruited 25 young adults residing in this area ages 15-21 that have been referred from probation officers and various social-service organizations throughout Austin. The Cipher connects with these participants by speaking a language that embraces cultural differences, communicating in ways that make them feel more comfortable, and reaching out differently from any other program. Engaging youth in community events, rallies, and festivals and providing opportunities to meet with committed mentors, musicians, poets, and community leaders helps them establish positive relationships, learn positive coping skills, and ways to create their own opportunities.

Plan of Action

A documentary of The Hip Hop Project (produced by Bruce Willis and Queen Latifah) released in spring 2007 has inspired other cities to create similar programs. Complementary to the original, the mission of The Cipher – Austin’s Hip Hop Project is to build a community of young leaders and socially-responsible hip hop artists and to strengthen the East Austin community in multiple ways. Thrilled by a once-in-a-lifetime chance to record their own collective hip hop CD, the skills gained through the program will take them farther in life than they would have thought possible. The writing and communication exercises taught at every meeting serve as a platform for expression that addresses their feelings of powerlessness, isolation, and self-efficacy.

For More Info

www.thecipheratx.org

Project Updates

1/5/2008-Our project now has more than twenty people volunteering in some way. We have 25 participants that are doing better in school, are engaged in the community and have improved their writing and performance skills. We have also shown that despite limited public transportation, teens will come to a program they love.

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