FIRE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL ARTS COLLABORATIVE

Our relationship with local youth organizers (YO) of summer protests transmuted into a series of workshops curated to their interests and skill sets. It merged to engage youth in deep work, through a lens of transformative justice, around their identity, roles in community, and relationship building as a way of organizing. To ensure community safety, we began as a small cohort of 4 in 2020. We spent the summer in person, then transitioned to weekly virtual fall sessions to maintain space for their voices and artistry. The first cohort collaborated on the creation of We’re Coming for Your Money: a zine about abolishing policing & imagining justice. YO cohorts have 6-10 participants who meet for 6-8 weeks, culminating in a self-designed project. In 2021, cohorts are engaging in workshops that explore the interconnected nature of mental health and community. Visual arts have been the primary medium with public posters and murals in the building.

A group (4-8) of youth over 18 who have been a part of Fire programming for a minimum of 3 years with an interest in shaping the future of strategic and building planning. Often close to aging out of our program structure, these youth are empowered through one-on-ones, community building, and workshops to become part of the collaborative decision making of the organization with the Co-Executive Directors, Board and their peers. This group has explored environmental reports, space layout and program design for younger youth. They currently act as our Community Advisory Board and will begin hosting forums and community talkbacks in 2022.

We support and engage youth development through one-on-one creative & leadership workshops. Through these relationships we refer youth to local services, provide access to resources and tools in times of crisis, and create concrete pathways to youth aging out of programs to become staff members.

A tradition since 2016, Queer Prom comes back from hiatus in April 2022. This is a special event that is an affirming space where youth can safely bring their partners, where whatever clothing they want, while dancing the night away. Taking place in our building, staff and elder youth serve as chaperones for the evening and ensure there is food and fun in a sober space for Queer youth in Kalamazoo. This is a fun alternative to some of the violence youth may experience fully expressing themselves at their school's function.

Based on one-on-one interactions and suggestions from program participants, we develop and engage workshops that tend to the weekly needs of youth. Sometimes that means a boundaries workshop over zoom, sometimes it's inviting them into the space after school for a story prompt and sharing new notebooks. There are weekly offerings posted to our Discord and Instagram that youth are able to drop-into or sign-up for and receive supplies ahead of time. Whatever the offering, we ensure there is an element of mental health support or Social Emotional Learning that provides a concrete tool to walk away with.