Shayna Sheness Israel

Shayna's Saturday Cipher program is a seven-month series of poetry, rap and performance classes aimed at cultivating teenage youth of color in an apprenticeship-like fashion. The program aims to teach youth to use art to question, problem-solve and express their voices in the public sphere. The classes will teach youth to chronicle their socio-historic lives and cultural past with the intent of fostering agency, authorship, and a perspective through which they can make sense of their current experiences. The series will culminate in the creation of a pro-peace music video featuring the participants. The students will also create a compellation of their work in audio and book form.