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Send Love, Work for Peace

6/15/2016

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The tragic events of this past weekend at The Pulse in Orlando brought sorrow to many in the Kids Creative community, particularly our LGBTQ and Latino/a staff and families. June is both Gun Violence Awareness Month and Pride Month and we need to send love to Orlando, to the grieving families, to the entire LGBT community and to our communities that know gun violence way too well.

However, sending love is only one step.  We also need to fight for equality and for peace.

For Kids Creative, this weekend's horrible events were sandwiched by events of peace. On Saturday, our high school apprentices did a reading of their original play, "Undecided", which portrayed a teen who was shunned by his family for being gay. He runs away (in true Kids Creative fashion, he runs away on a shuttle to Mars) and meets another teen, Mac, and together they fight the bigotry of hate. They are accepted by Mac's family immediately, an eye-opening experience for our protagonist. However, the play ends with violence, a gun shot from the protagonist's father killing the protagonist's mother, accidentally shot during a fit of rage. This group of students created this play together using the motto "All ideas are good" and tackled these issues head on, not concerned with identities and perceptions. They left us with hope and recognizing that there is still so much work to do.

The other event was on Monday, after we learned of the Orlando shooting. The Kids Creative summer leadership staff gathered in that same room for our annual Peace & Culture training before summer camp. To start off each training, we join together in a circle and take three steps. First, we think about everything we brought into that training--news of tragedy, illness, a bad commute, etc. We look up, take a step in and we leave all of that behind us. We are now in a new space as a group. Second, we take a step back and recognize our new community, creating a collective force field to tackle any difficult issues together. Finally, we step in once again, this time recognizing our new space and acknowledging that we're in this together.

It is increasingly necessary to discuss gun violence with children. This is not an easy topic. We must be transparent with our kids about what steps we are taking to make sure they, and we, are safe. Our hope is that using "All ideas are good," we can create a space where we listen to each other and achieve a lasting, sustainable peace, where differences are recognized and appreciated and conflicts are solved through communication, rather than violence.
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June 2nd is Gun Violence Awareness Day

6/2/2016

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Today, we change the Kids Creative logo to Orange to honor the start of National Gun Violence Awareness Month.

Gun violence is a pressing issue for many NYC communities. Kids Creative is joining city officials and organizations to bring visibility to ending gun violence through a city-wide campaign, “Go Orange.”  

We all have a role to play in stopping gun violence, especially the Arts. But How do we, as artists, prevent gun violence?

We need see gun violence prevention as a Long Term issue. We are not police, we cannot stop a gun from going off. However, if we look to tackle gun violence in the long term, we can identify many solutions. We have to take a step back and think about what circumstances led to someone using a gun at all. 

When we consider conflicts in Kids Creative, confidence is key:
  • Do the people involved in the conflict have enough confidence in themselves and in others to be able to resolve the conflict without having to resort to something as powerfully lethal as a gun? 
  • What tools do they need to see alternatives to violence?
  • What can we do to foresee conflicts before they happen and boost each person’s confidence in their conflict resolution skills?

The choice to use a gun in an altercation starts well before someone even has the altercation or picks up the gun. Kids Creative uses the arts to empower children to have a voice.  They get to be the creative drivers of their own lives.  Our participants have the ability to use their imaginations and develop their ideas into a piece of music, art or theater. However, they also have the responsibility to listen to the ideas of others and to truly consider their input on a larger scale. Being able to take a step back, hear the ideas of others and use empathy is one step to resolve conflicts using non-violent methods.

Many members of the Kids Creative family (students and staff) live in areas with high incidents of gun violence.  Our programs provide a safe space for students and staff alike. They give them the opportunity to imagine a world where guns don’t have to exist, and where conflicts are resolved peacefully.
 
The next time you help empower a child to resolve their conflict peacefully, you are giving that child an alternative to using a gun.  For us at Kids Creative, that is what Going Orange is all about.

Show your support by wearing orange and telling your friends why.


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    Author

    Unless otherwise noted, our blog posts are the musings of our co-founder Adam Jacobs

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