B4 Youth Theatre Opens Two New Sites This Fall in Philadelphia

B4 Youth Theatre Adds Two New Sites this Fall in Philadelphia

About B4 Youth Theatre

B4 Youth Theatre has provided programming since 2010 in the US and Liberia, West Africa hosting Vacation Schools for the Arts which supplement the school year throughout summers and after school and cultural exchange programs between youth in Liberia and in the US. A registered 501c3, B4 Youth Theatre stands for Burning Barriers Building Bridges and has hosted a number of youth-centric cultural events in Philadelphia and the region. Headquartered in Maryland, US, B4 Youth Theatre has been actively providing opportunities for African and African descended and identifying youth to connect with each other on educational and social justice issues. Our mission is to empower young people to become educated citizens through the arts. Our Vacation School for the Arts program model is rooted in community organizing and freedom education pedagogies: both students and instructors learn and share their lived experiences through creative processes and storytelling as a foundation for envisioning a better world. Since 2010, we have worked with nearly 1000 students in small groups to develop full-length productions with original music, dance, and drama on issues that the youth identify as being important to them with solutions they consider actionable for their communities. During COVID-19, this model was extended virtually through a Sachs Program for Arts Innovation grant at the University of Pennsylvania. This allowed a year-long collaboration between youth in Liberia and youth within the African Families Health Organization (AFAHO) network to join with graduate students in the Masters of Public Health program at the University of Pennsylvania in creating short films in a course titled Health Messaging in Africa: Public Performance as Community Health Education . This was an extension of the Global Youth Arts Collaborative, a virtual ten-week theater, and film intensive for ages 10-20.

Hannah Mckay works with Junior Arts Instructors in Philadelphia

Partnership Director of B4 Youth Theatre, Hannah McKay was a co-facilitator for the virtual Masters of Public Health course where she met Philadelphia high school students Patricia, Ramatulai, Sky, Martina, Sara, and Mericianne, all African immigrant young women interested in public health and the arts. She shared her firsthand experiences on how street theatre was used to create awareness about Ebola and best practices during the Ebola crisis in Liberia. Hannah has continued to support the learning of

these students who have recently been named as Junior Arts Instructors for B4 Youth Theatre after a successful practicum experience where they led social justice and art workshops under the direction of Founder and Executive Director Dr. Jasmine Blanks Jones at Orita's Cross Freedom School in Baltimore.

To prepare the new Junior Arts Instructors, including one additional Philadelphia student who is also from Liberia named MaRuth, Hannah will lead three arts intensive retreats with them this summer so that in the Fall, they can open two new sites of B4 Youth Theatre in Philadelphia using our peer-to-peer model.

Donate to help Hannah and her team in expanding arts education programs with African and African descended youth in Philadelphia.

Donate

Jasmine Blanks Jones, Founder of B4YT with Junior Arts Instructors from Philadelphia

This program is supported by the William Penn Foundation.

This email has been sent to you because you are a subscriber of B4 Youth Theatre. Click here to Unsubscribe

Sent via