Youth Venture

An afterschool program based holistically on hip hop culture

(Bigger than) Hip Hop Project is an afterschool program at a middle school based on hip-hop. The first hour would be dedicated to schoolwork, followed by a 45-minute roundtable discussion based history of hip-hop and to finish the day, the young people will break into groups based on the four elements of hip-hop: DJing, MCing, break dancing, and graffiti art. Instead of there being a progression based on age, the progression would be based on years active. The arts education would progress naturally with lessons incorporating more details and tougher tasks as years pass. Hip-hop history would first deconstruct the current state of hip hop, then show hip hop’s past, and finally show a way to use hip hop as a means of social change. Throughout the program would be various trips to museums, galleries, or concerts and we would host speakers and panels for an assortment of discussions.
The two main goals of the program are to lower drop out rates by addressing each underlying cause, and to conserve traditions/history of a community and movement. The causes for dropping out of school that we'd like to address are as follows: Attendence Problems, No attention in classes, Lack of motivation, Lack of interest, “Better” options outside of school, Disconnect in family, Community Disconnect, Teacher/Student Hierarchy, and Economic downfalls.
Our program hopes to have 40 people participate in the program during the 2009-2010 school year, with 10 people being a part of each element group. As the years go on, we plan to end up with 120 people, which would include 40 people from each grade. As that continues, we would like to see the grades and attendance of each student who participates in the program noticeably improve. Within the community, we hope to find 10-12 volunteers per 40 students each day of the program to assist in homework help directly after school. For hip hop history lessons, we will have groups of 6-7 students, with a volunteer teaching and facilitating each group. The element groups will have 10 people per element and one teacher per each group. By doing that, we hope to have older pioneers of hip hop, younger people currently participating in hip hop, and then students interact and learn from each other. By 2011, we hope to expand into one other middle school somewhere else in the community. As the program grows, we hope to acquire more support, not only from the school, but also from the South Bronx and also the hip hop community at large.
Our venture idea is unique but also leverages existing ideas. There are no afterschool programs that focus solely on hip hop as a means for social impact. Our program teaches each element of hip hop at t he same time that it educates students about those elements and hip hop in general. Many programs that focus on hip hop focus only on the musical aspect of it. They also assume that students have a significant idea of the history upon entering the program. We will be different from that. However, there are afterschool programs that incorporate arts education and tutoring in their programs and use the mentorship that comes from that to enact change. One idea that our program leverages is the idea of youth for youth. That idea supports the theory that peer-to-peer interaction and education is effective. For our program, we hope to have students who move on to high school be a significant base for volunteers in the program.
Not only does this program clearly define many objectives of hip hop, but it is also bigger than hip hop. This is revolution.