Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

515 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York, NY 10037-1801
(212) 491-2200

www.nypl.org/research/sc/junior/index.html

Press-release: November 1, 2006

Contact: Kiboko Projects, Jill Raufman - www.kiboko.org

On Saturday, November 18^th, The Schomburg Center Junior Scholars Program will be hosting a workshop featuring The Youth Project: USA/Kenya, a cultural exchange program between students from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City and students from Okok Secondary School in Kenya coordinated by Kiboko Projects . Students from Eleanor Roosevelt High School will be on hand to discuss their experience with the program and the projects they worked on with their Kenyan counterparts. The program, which will feature excerpts from documentaries recorded by the Okok students, focuses on cultural exchange between secondary school students in Kenya and the United States through storytelling, using such creative art forms such as mask-making, photography, filming and editing videos, and creative writing. Using these tools, the students compare the communities, lives, and issues affecting teenagers in New York and Kisumu , Kenya . The students who are part of the Junior Scholars Program will participate in this workshop, viewing the films and having a dialogue with the Eleanor Roosevelt students. The Okok Secondary School is in a rural area outside Kisumu that has a high percentage of poverty and has been deeply affected by the AIDS pandemic. Some of the topics Kenyan students covered in their books and videos include polygamous households, traditional healers, child labor, and portraits of their daily routines and chores. As a result of these projects, the students gained such skills as photography, shooting and editing film, and mask-making, and broadened their perception of their role in a global society.

About the Junior Scholars Program:
The Junior Scholars Program, now in its sixth year, is a Saturday school geared toward students of African descent throughout the New York Metropolitan area. Its primary goal is to ground young people in the histories and cultures of people throughout the African Diaspora. The program recruits youth between the ages of 11 and 17 for an intensive, 26-week, series of Saturday sessions, from 10am-3pm, designed to prepare them for intellectual and entrepreneurial careers.

Junior Scholars gain access to extensive resources at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—Where Every Month Is Black History Month.  It is expected that Junior Scholars will expand their knowledge of who they are as intellectual and artistic beings and will continue on the path prepared by their prolific and trailblazing ancestors.

“The mission of The New York Life/Schomburg Center Junior Scholars Program is to empower young black minds for optimal educational achievement and social and professional success.” Howard Dodson, Schomburg Center Director

About Kiboko Projects: www.kiboko.org

Kiboko Projects has sponsored art, education and cultural exchange programs for youth and adults in the US , Africa, and Russia since 1999.  Our mission is to develop art and cultural projects in which participants use various art forms, such as visual arts, photography, video, creative writing, video conferencing and radio, to share their stories.  This dialogue is the first step toward understanding and global tolerance between people from different societies.