Weeksville Heritage Center

Weeksville Heritage Center will facilitate Who Holds The Mic?, a twice-weekly afterschool workshop aimed at exposing youth to history, cultural expression, and artistic creation. The program will focus primarily on youth living in six New York City Housing Authority housing developments with a large population of African-Americans, Caribbean Americans, and some Hispanic Americans, and is in response to the museum's programming shift towards youth development and strengthening ties to these nearby housing developments. Activities include creation of collateral, facilitation of the afterschool program; activation of the Weeksville Oral Historian program to interview and record stories from youth as they participate in the project; and showcasing the work produced during the workshops in Weeksville's performance space. The project's success will be measured through workshop attendance, rate of program growth and attrition, and final participation in the showcase.