Arab American Spoken Word & Hip Hop

The Arab American Spoken Word and Hip Hop Program is designed to cultivate young community leaders who are comfortable addressing community and youth issues through writing, performance, and civic engagement. In addition to Spoken Word & Hip Hop instruction, our program fosters leadership and professional development; personal and cross-cultural communication skills; and critical thinking and social justice awareness. Most workshops and discussions will be led by the youth participants in an effort to promote leadership, facilitation skills, and a program environment that is youth-led and adult-guided. Youth select the themes that they would like to address in each session of the program so as to focus on issues that are directly affecting them. Past themes have included youth and gang violence, education rights, poverty, and race relations. Youth explore these themes through open discussions, documentaries, youth-led presentations, and relevant field trips. Youth then create original spoken word poems around these issues, edit their works through peer and instructor critiques, and perform before a live audience.