KOKOSART

Our objective is to offer youth nontraditional social models via cultural learning practices including apprenticeship and training of skill sets they can use to benefit themselves and their communities in a sustainable fashion. Youth and young adults need something to do and access to practices and trades that will stimulate interest and possibly result in career pathways. They also need money and this program is stipend incentivized for their participation.

 

We understand historically that prosperous communities are built from within through interconnected and interdependent parts that make up a healthy society. A community is a village and a tribe. In a tribal model, collective work benefits everyone, and everyone has a value and a role to play.  Self reliance is not regarded in a communal setting because we are not designed to be self reliant. We as humas are here for connection not division.  One of the most powerful statements we hear lately is self care. It's really about community care, as the self is not equipped to be an island unto ourselves. We have been taught to feel ashamed if we can't take care of ourselves and be prosperous and healthy. We need to feel connected to something greater than ourselves, which is our community.  We desire to be accountable for our community and the roles we share.

 

It is our honor to come together, as revolutionary culture workers with pro youth development to fortify our youth through collaborative experiences and connection, with a dynamic 360 approach to development. Leaning on the strengths of age old wisdom of indigenous community traditions of cultivating youth through the practice of the apprenticeship model, we will address the needs of youth who have been marginalized, traumatized, confused, and criminalized through the colonial process of dehumanization and degradation methods of racism and white supremacy through systemic structures and institutions devaluing BIPOC people.

By introducing and engaging youth with BIPOC leaders in a holistic experience we will reconnect them with BIPOC practices and models that build skills, strength, resilience, community and cultural pride, wellness and community stewardship to help lead them and their communities forward in health, strength, and solidarity.

Led by social leaders of community trauma informed programs, forebears of culture who will focus on these various areas:

 

-Decolonizing the mind and body through art and graffiti mural making, in the community .

-Oral tradition of rap and spoken word as a medium of resistance protest, voicing injustice, uplifting people and promoting justice.

 

-Protecting the body with ancient civil art practices that promote health, physical wellbeing, and personal development that honor tradition, discipline and self control through martial arts and social Hip-Hop Funk n Soul power dances.

-Social leadership of communities, BIPOC leadership and accountability through communal business enterprises tied to Black and Brown power, community stewardship and accountability through focused intention and teamwork, leaning on one another, interconnected experience and interdependance on one another, forming the whole to create sustainable empowered communities.

-Holistic wellness giving youth useful tools for healing that include mindfulness, indigenious ways, and holistic approaches by connecting them and teaching them with community healers that are certified and licensed practitioners. 

 

In addition to exposing the youth to alternative healing techniques we will also show them that it’s possible to not only heal but to also build a business as a healer within the community.  Resources will be made available for further education, workshops and opportunities.

 

Our goal is to inspire our youth to heal, grow, create, and show what’s possible as far as business structures for the future.  Through our selection of community partner artists and members we are selecting people who have been directly impacted by similar trauma and historical challenges that our youth are facing presently.  By carefully selecting community members that have healed and are successful in their trade we hope to build relationships that could potentially turn into apprenticeship programs within the Denver/Aurora community.  By doing this the impact on the youth will be building real life trades, work experience and connection in the arts, healing and community network.  Our hope is that by the time the youth graduate from high school they will have tools for healing and transformation from their trauma as well as work experience and a passionate trade or skill.

 

A key component in the desired outcome and success in our program is to offer our youth skills for independence.  We want our youth to know that there is a way out of the system and that they can achieve goals that they are passionate about no matter what trauma, stress or social inequities they have faced.