Why Young People? And Why Creative Empowerment?
“I wish AfA was in existence and was introduced to me when I was a young person. I never learned to express my feelings in a healthy, productive way until late in my thirties. I want to make sure that any young person who needs it has knowledge of and feels safe…It [AfA] means ‘hope’ for the youth of the world (or at least our tiny corner of it).”
-2019 Board Memeber
Art from Ashes encourages youth empowerment through creative expression. With guided writing prompts, AfA invites young people to tell their stories without censorship and in a safe space through poetry and spoken word. The curriculum, put together and refined over the past 30 years, draws inspiration from the popular myth of the phoenix.
The story of the phoenix did not end when it died, rather a new phoenix was born from the ashes.
Perhaps when some part of us dies whether due to trauma or external conditioning, like the phoenix we can be the creators of a new self from the ashes of our past.
Our youth have a voice, and they are writing and shouting and singing—are we listening? At AfA we practice listening as a form of love and acceptance. Showing up and lifting up the voices of young people is our greatest calling. By igniting their creativity, they are encouraged to transform out of the ashes of their previous negative perceptions using the power of language and metaphor.
By supporting our work, you can be the person you may have needed when you were young.
Struggle is the story of humanity. Where there is struggle, there is hope. However small that action is, we see you! And we want you to be empowered to lift others.
We’re asking on behalf of the young person you used to be, the one no one would listen to. With the same urgency we all feel to find ourselves and be seen and heard, we ask you to light the way for them.
You can put your gift to work immediately here at ArtfromAshes.org/donate or through the Colorado Gives Day portal: bit.ly/AfA-cogivesday, and if you have a Paypal account, they do not charge any fees at all: Donate with PayPal Giving Fund
303 Magazine