EarSay Voices at the International HIgh School
Transforming Trauma Into Art

Our programs with immigrant youth focus on professional training and mentorship in theatre, storytelling, English language skills, and leadership through training in arts and creating public performances. We serve immigrant and refugee youth who are recent arrivals to New York City, and create partnerships and collaborations with immigrant artists as well as non-immigrnt artists. Transforming Trauma Into Art provides opportunities for young people to discover their passions and to set goals. Parcitipating high school students range in age from 13 to 18 years old. College interns include both undergrad and graduate student interns. There is a ver diverse ethnic mix with young people from Mexico, Honduras, China, Yemen, Egypt, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Guinea, Senegal, Morocco, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc. Ninety percent of the young people that EarSay serves are eligible for food assistance programs. Our youth programs take place in partnership with the International High School at LaGuardia Community College where we have been for over eleven years. This longevity has set the ground for long term sustainability.

STEP ONE: We raised $5,000 in matching donation from Viper Records and are aiming to match that dollar for dollar by November 30th, 2012 
STEP TWO:  Another $5,000 by December 30, 2012
STEP THREE:  Another $20,000 by Februrary 28, 2013.  

It costs $500 per student for a year. 

That's ten $50 donations or five $100 donations or 20 $25 donations. 

Your contribution makes a difference! Please tell ten friends. 

EarSay team: Artistic Director, Judith Sloan
Filmmaker/photographer,Robert Winn
Assistant Director/Teaching Artist, Catherine Hanna
Partnership w/International High School at LaGuardia Community College,
Partnering School Leader Sarah Gil with participating teacher Amy Rothman
Principal John Starkey, Assistant Principal Jacqueline Valane

EarSay engages professional artists and teaching artists in the workshops and public events, including musicians, actors, poets, singers, dancers, hip hop artists and sound engineers: Participating artists have included: Bridget Kelso, Catherine Hanna, Touré "Southpaw" Harris, Frank London, Amy Ziff, MiWi La Lupa (Michael Williams), Sonny Singh, Frank London, A. Red Ukachuwu, Chen Lo, Ken White, Immortal Technique, Hasan Salaam, Jen Bleier, Laura Doggett, Elise Knudson and Jie-Song Zhang. College interns have included Phil Newsom and Justin Hudson.

To learn more about EarSay visit the EarSay.org

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About YO MISS and our Youth Arts Education Program: 

Ms. Sloan’s art and teaching cross-pollinate: She uses immigrant stories that she and her husband wrote about — dozens of them are included in a 2003 book, “Crossing the BLVD”—to demonstrate how to shape narrative and to get students talking about their lives. And the students flood her with new material. As she helps the students compose the performance, she is also coming full circle with a new work of her own. “Yo Miss! Teaching Inside the Cultural Divide,” which she performs with musical collaborators, re-enacts and riffs on her experiences teaching teenagers from myriad worlds: refugee camps, struggling neighborhoods, prisons. It is a performance about performances, a story containing many stories. And suddenly, “Yo Miss!” has another mission: To raise money to keep the story going. The New York Times, Anne Barnard

EarSay received partial funding for the program in 2011-2012 through the Department of Education, The New York State Council on the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, and Viper Records.