We were blessed with the opportunity to take the New Wilderness message into the literal wilderness of North Cascades National Park. We were invited to offer a playnote presentation at the North Cascades Insttitute Youth Leadership Conference. This was an incredible group of students who had attended NCI programs in the past and were coming back together to reconnect with each other and to gain more leadership skills in support of their roles as stewards for the natural environment. Here is a great video of the experience.

Tags: nci, north cascades environmental learning center, keynote, national park service, youth leadership

Some feedback from a recent session at River Trails Learning Center in the Annoka/Hennepin School District in Minnesota:

"Hey today you guys came to the school RiverTrailsLearningCenter RTLC. I just want to speak on the behalf of my school and peers we enjoyed it ...I learned alot about myself today. THANK YOU!"
- Jade

---

Benji and Maketa,

Thank you for coming today and beginning our journey of continuing to work with our high school students on learning about themselves and the important issues of freedom, justice and equality for all.  I observed so many students taking huge risks and going outside of their comfort zone.  For some of the students it was being able to stay focused and be with a group for an extended period of time.  Others were able to self-advocate and identify when they were becoming anxious or overwhelmed and  appropriately identify when they needed a break and then were able to return to the group.  Students stood up and spoke from the heart about themselves, their beliefs and important issues facing our world today. They reached out to other students.  Students and staff were able to share a common experience today that may very well impact how they work together on a day to day basis.  Life is all about the journey and I believe we took some very real, genuine steps forward today in helping us all to come together as one community with a greater understanding of one another.  Thanks for leading the way.
 
Our Mission statement is Learn, Grow, Achieve.  River Trail Learning Center @ L.O. Jacob belief statement is we promote learning, educational growth, change and educational success in a safe environment.  Creativity, unique learning styles, individuality and fun are valued and embraced.  Emphasis is placed on open communication and mutual respect.  These shared beliefs lead to empowerment, effective problem solving and inner strength.  You helped us with our mission and belief statement by making it a reality through your performance and workshop.  The students attending RTLC are all on Individualized Educational Plans and need all day special education help and support.  They haven’t been successful in other schools/settings and so they are referred to our program.  Watching them today, you saw the person first and the disability second (if at all).  Enthusiastic, engaged, intelligent students that have a lot to share with others.
 
I’ll keep you updated as we continue the journey.  I appreciate your being flexible in working with our group.  If we would have selected a smaller  group of students, I believe we would have left some students out that took risks and surprised many of us today.  The beauty of trusting the process and knowing something good will come as a result of it.
 
When you have time, please send me information on the summer whitewater rafting trip.  Dates and cost if I can recruit enough staff interested to fill the raft and go as a leadership team and bring back more experiences to build on when working with our youth. 
 
Thanks again and have a safe trip wherever new wilderness project takes you.
 
Vickie Pitney
Program Supervisor
River Trail Learning Center at L. O. Jacob

Elk River, Buffalo School Districts, MN

We kicked of our 3-phase high school process for 5 high schools in Elk River and Buffalo School Districts with performances and phase 1 workshops. It was great to see so many returning faces, and to hear so many new voices. Minnesota really is our home away from home!

Tags: elk river, leadership, buffalo, minnesota

YLC Team Planning Retreat
A Cabin in the woods, Trinity Alps N. California



Left the house at 4:30 in the morning, near the Canadian Border, picked up Maketa, WADE, and Teddy in Seattle, and embarked on “brothers” road trip to Northern California. We met Tarah, Jada, and Lizette at Tarah’s cabin in the mountains near Mt. Shasta. The goal was to plan and design the Youth Leadership Conference at the annual White Privilege Conference in Minneapolis this coming April. We did that and much more. As our collaborative work grows, so do we as a community of artists and educators. Every time we get together I feel like I come away changed a little for the better. The “Social Justice Arts Collective” is born and already coming into being. Love to everyone there and to those who couldn’t make it!

Anoka Hennepin School District

We kicked off our second year with Anoka -Hennepin School District outside the Minneapolis metro area this week.
We will be working with youth and educators in more than 15 buildings throughout the largest school district in the state of Minnesota. We are also partnering with the Gary Howard Equity Institutes to build a foundation for system-wide systemic change. Looking forward to the challenges and the connections that make this work rich.

Educators Grand Canyon Expedition



New Wilderness Project partnered with Grand Canyon Expeditions Company (link) to do an 8-day Wilderness River trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon this August. We had social justice activists, teachers, administrators, and trades people, folks from different cultural backgrounds, and different ages from the mid-west and the west coast.

The concept was to work together to build a model Just and equitable community as we floated the river and descended into the beauty and adventure of Grand Canyon. It was an awesome experience in ways that are difficult to put into word. If I were to try, the words would be these:

BEAUTY – WILDNESS – CONNECTION – CHALLENGE – TRANSFORMATION – RECONCILIATION – LIGHT – FLOW – BIG

You can check out the many beautiful pictures from the trip here. We also shot a video of our song 'Many Rivers' while we visited Blacktail Canyon. You can watch it on the NWP Media page.

We hope to do the trip again in 2012, so stay tuned to hear about the next adventure of a lifetime!

NakamaConference Keynote
Western Washington University

Thank you to all the folks involved with bringing us in as the keynote for the annual Nakama (Circle of Friends) conference. Being that we are both Western Alum, this meant a lot to us. We received wonderful responses and feedback from the keynote performance and the breakout sessions – and so our relationship with Western Washington University grows.

Here's what one person shared with us on Facebook:

"I know I said a lot to you both today at [the Nakama Conference], but I want to follow up here with a little public praise. You both have a beautiful gift, and it's such a tremendous joy to see you putting it to the use for which it was intended. Thank you both so much for sharing your talents and love and joy!"

~ Andie Whitewing

Read more about what's happening in our community by joining our Facebook page

I’m sitting on the train, headed north to my hometown and my family after these last few months on the road. A little tired and feeling very blessed to do this work. Maketa and I spent the first part of last week in Anoka-Hennepin School Dist. We had a day at University Ave. Elementary with staff – great conversations. Good to get to know Tami and thank you so much for the tea! Also, thank you to Peace for the amazing setup at Northdale Middle School. The students there blew our minds with amazing poems, and their willingness to take the conversation deep. We are amazed by you guys – you are why we do this work! Thank you too to Mark at Mississippi Elementary – another great day, and blessings to all the teachers out there on the difficult, yet rewarding journey toward reaching more kids, across more of their differences, so that they can achieve at a higher level, more of the time.

From Anoka-Hennepin we headed to Buffalo School District. I must say, I felt like I was on my way home driving out to Buffalo, MN. The fresh tilled soil in the fields, the tractor sales lot, reminded me of my own rural small town upbringing. When we drove up to Buffalo High School, surrounded by farm land, I half expected to see a mostly white student population like I experienced growing up, but that’s not what we saw. The halls were filled with much more diversity than I expected. We had a wonderful time with the 6th and 7th graders who came up from the middle school to the high school performance center for our performance. The emails we got from you guys brought tears to our eyes. Seriously. Thank you all so much for reminding us of the impact of our work.



We were honored to offer a playnote performance that supported the theme of the high school Impact Retreat which gave incoming 8th graders a chance to experience their new school, ask questions of their high school student leaders/mentors and think seriously about what kind of impact they want to make when they become freshman. It was great to see the New Wilderness Project youth who we worked with earlier this year through our partnership with neighboring Elk River School District. We miss you guys and are really happy to hear that you CAP presentation went so well!! We can't wait to see the video and we want a couple of the cool NWP tee-shirts that you designed! It was awesome to see that you are literally wearing your community agreements and staying true to the unique space that we created together. Thanks to Vicki, Matt and Mark, and a special thanks to Richard for taking such good care of us in the theater – we’ll see you on the river!




The sun is setting on Puget Sound as I ride the train into the Chuckanut Mountains. What a beautiful struggle we all share in this short time we spend on earth. I lost my grandfather last week, and as I look out at the Sound, a place he loved so much, I’m struck by the fleeting nature of life. I don’t want to waist a minute – home to my wife, home to my kids, home to a mountain bike ride!

Tags: Buffalo High School, Impact Retreat, Buffalo Middle School

We are in the midst of the WPC Youth Leadership Conference and the experience is already deep and rich. I have stolen a few minutes to share some of my reflections on the past few weeks here. I am already looking forward to sharing details of this experience, but for now I want to share some reflection on our work in Anoka/Hennepin School District. In the past month we have led 6 professional development sessions for teachers and two session for students - middle school and high school. We led our phase two session with students from Crossroads and Compass alternative schools and it was incredible. These youth were more than ready to take it to take it deeper and that's exactly what they did. They were excited after the first session because of the space that they had to talk about "things that they don't get to talk about". The phase two session was a space for them to share their experience of oppression and how it has impacted their lives. Our dialogue about how to take action to resist dominance was so rich and overall the session was real and meaningful for everyone - the students and us.

We spent a day at Coon Rapids Middle School and offered two performances and a diversity awareness and community building workshop. It was probably the deepest, most engaged middle school workshop session that we've ever experienced. Once again, the kids took it there. It was a truly transformational experience for many of them. Here are some excerpts from the thank you letters that we received from those students:



"…your presentation in the gym was very inspirational to me. Everything that you two talked about made me realize that everyone can be a leader in their own way. Even in they might not realize that they are. Another thing that I realized is that sometimes you just have to take a risk. Like you said, "expand out of your comfort zone". I don't think I'll ever forget about the New Wilderness Project. Your music is great and what you are doing is so inspirational." - Alexis M.




" I feel very close to the two of you. You helped me find a side of me I didn't know I had. I hope you have a marvelous time in your inner wilderness!" - Chontae M

"Thank you for coming to our school. The assembly was something, but the leadership session went really well. People were actually real about how they felt! …it was fun and made me understand much more. I was excited to tell my mom about this…but she wasn't as excited as me. Just like my mom. I'd like to share this with other people." - Shirley S.

"The things you taught us made me put life in a different perspective. When I walked into that room, I thought of diversity as black and white now I see its a rainbow of things put in a spectrum. Thank you for all that you have taught each of us." - Janet I. (7th grade)

Tags: Coon Rapids middle school, student response, diversity awareness workshop

Wow! So much has happened over the past month it's hard to know where to begin. We have been on the road every week since the beginning of March and we're not done yet! I'm writing this blog entry at 30,000 feet as we head to LaCross, Wisconsin for the 11th Annual White Privilege Conference (WPC). This is the third year that we are a part of the team of facilitators leading the Youth Leadership Conference (YLC) to create a space for youth to explore power, privilege, oppression and ACTION! Stay tuned for blog updates on that.



Looking back, we have been blessed to deepen our work in Elk River School District by offering professional development for nearly 250 teachers. We were invited to use our creative and interactive approach to support teachers as they begin to integrate new American Indian Curriculum Standards into their teaching. The focus of this session - cultural competence and the American Indian experience - provided a great opportunity for us to seek out new information and collaborate with our American Indian allies. Not only did we reach out to our colleagues at the Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, WA, The National Education Association in Washington D.C., and the Suquamish Tribal Education Department in Suquamish, WA, we also connected with new allies in Minnesota. We offered two sessions and collaborated with two local native american educators - Deb Lehmkuhl, the district American Indian specialist and Larry Yazzie - a native american language and culture educator and national champion fancy dancer. Needless to say both of these sessions had HUGE impact and were incredibly well received. Here is some of the feedback we've received:

"We have had such wonderful feedback regarding the work that you did with our teachers. Some of our hardest critics have said that the session was on of the best that have attended. Thank you for the integrity and energy you bring! Can't wait to have you back again!"

~ Gretchen Fischer

"I just wanted to let you know again how blessed this district is to have the two of you along with Larry Yazzie.  What a fabulous collaboration.  That could not have been rehearsed it was purely  natural.  Both messages were so powerful.  I have had phone calls, emails and people stopping to tell me what a great use of district resources and time.  I am dedicated to finding a way to make this happen again next school year."

~ Melissa Jordan

A fire has been sparked for an ongoing collaboration with between New Wilderness Project and Larry Yazzie. We are currently working to further integrate our art and our message to create a new workshop offering that is guaranteed to move bodies and open minds. Stay tuned!

Tags: elk river, professional development, Larry Yazzie, new wilderness project, maketa, benjie

Project focuses on diversity, achievement

Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Coon Rapids Herald
Anoka County, Minnesota

by Sue Austreng Staff writer


Maketa Wilborn blows a conch shell, employing an age-old Polynesian tradition to invite students on a journey of discovery. Photo by Sue Austreng


Embarking on an adventurous journey culminating in discovery and community celebration, sophomores at Coon Rapids High School attended a New Wilderness Project assembly Feb. 18.

Boulders and fallen trees dotting the landscape of the wilderness navigated on this journey represent obstacles students encounter – obstacles to peace, understanding and unity among their classmates. The New Wilderness Project, an educational program, focuses on diversity awareness, student achievement, leadership and community development. Working in partnership with schools across the country, Maketa Wilborn and Benjie Howard, the spirit and personality of the project, guide students with music and song, poetry and recitation. “We will give you a lotta heart and a lotta soul,” said Howard as he welcomed students to the assembly and introduced the New Wilderness Project. “Our work, our family is about diversity. It’s about social justice. It’s about equity – it’s about changing the world.” The New Wilderness is a metaphor that is central to the project’s approach, according to Wilborn. “A journey into the New Wilderness is one where we discover more about ourselves and others. It’s a place that no one person or group owns, where we come together to learn and communicate,” Wilborn said. “The New Wilderness is a landscape of our vision; it’s the change we choose to create.” And Howard and Wilborn employed parallel and intersecting recitations and original song as they interacted with CRHS students, inviting them to identify individual passions and acknowledge barriers that separate one from another. “Each of you brings a different passion to your school community,” Wilborn said. “Your life is like a river and you’re all trying to make it through the rapids – let’s talk about what we’re fighting for instead of what we’re fighting against.” The journey continued as students applauded each other’s passions and then imagined how barriers and obstacles could be overcome. One-by-one, students stood in the crowded auditorium and declared their discoveries. “Everyone has a different story, but the ending is all the same,” said one. “It’s a lot easier to talk to people when you break down the barriers,” said another. Another offered this: “Being a model is one of the most important things you can do. Become a model and people will follow you.” “Barriers wouldn’t exist if people didn’t hold them,” declared one. “We need to be the change we want to see happen,” said another and Wilborn immediately affirmed that sentiment. “The one person you can change is yourself. Work on it,” Wilborn said. Students who participated in a pre-assembly workshop spoke of the importance of the New Wilderness journey. “We have great diversity – diversity of color, of heritage, of religion, of passion – we need to be open to it and celebrate it,” said CRHS sophomore Baobie Hang. Her classmate, Zolay Daynuah, agreed. “It’s so good to have someone come in and say it’s OK to be open, it’s OK to share who you are... That’s the only way we can understand each other, celebrate each other,” Daynuah said. Principal Jeff McGonigal talked about the decision to invite the New Wilderness Project to visit CRHS. “We have great diversity here...and these kids are very open-minded,” McGonigal said. “We’re just trying to make this school an even better place, even more welcoming, even more kind.” According to McGonigal, a group of CRHS staff members, part of a cultural competency program, will participate in the New Wilderness Project diversity training. “We’re out to celebrate our diversity, to embrace our differences,” McGonigal said. That diversity, those differences create a colorful mosaic, something that provides artistic beauty in the landscape that is Cardinal country. As the New Wilderness Project’s Feb. 18 assembly concluded at CRHS, Howard and Wilborn invited students to imagine their life story and offered this blessing: “There are many, many rivers and they all lead to the sea. Each river represents the journey of one life,” Wilborn said. “May your days gather behind you like stories and spread before you like a dream,” said Howard. To learn more about the New Wilderness Project, visit www.nwproject.com. Sue Austreng is at sue.austreng@ecm-inc.com

Tags: Anoka County, Coon Rapids, diversity, new wilderness project, Benjie Howard, Maketa Wilborn

I came across this personal blog of a woman named Marita who attended our session at Edmonds Community College. It was wonderful to hear what her take-aways were from the session and I wanted to share them here. THANK YOU Marita!

Check out her blog! Marita's Ecu-Gringa Life

I wanted to share a poem I wrote last week at an amazingly inspiring workshop created by the New Wilderness Project, a project to promote greater, more in-depth cultural competency around the country. The presenters and performers, Maketa and Benjie, shared and taught us many important lessons, but the key ones for me were the following:

• Think about your passions and how you bring them to your work and life
• Find balance with your passions and work
• Link creativity with nature/wilderness and social justice/equity work
• The importance of sharing our stories with each other as a tool for social justice
• It's about what we’re fighting for, not about what we're fighting against
• Speak your truth
• Remember anger comes from a deep pain
• There is no normal!
• Everybody has an interesting story
• The poet is in the poem
• Everyone is a poet…and a poem

Here is my poem:

I am from the era of iPhones, Facebook and reality TV
I am from the fun language of "Op" passed down by the women in my family
I am from the scent of raspberries and butterscotch at the neighbor's house on summer afternoons
I am from the kingdom of 5 cats and 1 dog, plus my mom and me
I am from Wednesday night dinners at Wendy's with my dad
I am from the wonderful day trips around the Sound that my mom took me on as a child
I am from the pristine waters of the Strait of Juan De Fuca and the Snohomish River
I am from the majestic Cascade & Andes Mountains towering above my homes
I am from the bustling Malecón in Salinas on a hot and humid evening
I am from the ceviche & patacones & canguil
I am from the swish of the waves all along the Pacific
I am from the sway of hips to salsa & merengue music
I am from the community of friends and family who take care of me while in paradise
I am from Everett...Ecuador

posted by Marita at 9:53 AM on Feb 5, 2010

Thank you to Chris Hudyma for working to grow this relationship between Edmonds Community College and New Wilderness Project. We had a wonderful full day with students and faculty. We began the day with a performance to create a space for authentic conversation, and spent the rest of the day doing just that – authentic, deep. Real dialogue, engagement, and learning. Thank you to everyone who was with us for, again, taking it deeper!



Thanks for lunch, John!

Back to our chilly home away from home on the Upper Mississippi River. Maketa and I returned to Elk River in the New Year for phase 2 of the NWP process with Rogers, Elk River, Ivan Sands, Park Center, and Zimmerman High Schools. As always, we were inspired by the voices of youth, taking the conversation to a deeper level. We got to unveil a new activity, a “Push/ Pull” where students discover what it’s like to lead others, find out how tough it is, and at the same time, find out how many tools they have to use as leaders/ stewards. We also got to unveil our new student workbooks. We are looking forward to coming back in March and getting to work on the Creative Action Projects!



For those who suggest that students don’t have much to say about transforming our education system; that they don’t play a role in moving the system to be more responsive to their needs, push the system to seek more equitable outcomes, and become sustainable in a new century – we know hundreds of youth in the Elk River area that can prove those neigh-Sayers wrong!

Benjie and I were in Salt Lake City, Utah November 10-12 working with our dad, Gary Howard. This collaboration is an incredible "family affair" through which Benjie and I get to integrate our creative approach with Gary's systemic change process that focuses on equity, inclusion and excellence.

Since we've returned home, we received some great feedback from a number of our session participants. Here's what they have to say:

I just wanted to tell the two of you thanks, so much.  I am still chewing on some realizations I came to personally last Thursday...trying to figure out what to do with them.

I would love a copy of the spoken word poems you did--both that you shared in the afternoon session.  I have told the elementary principal about your work and we're trying to see how/when we could have you come work with us.

Thank you so much!!

Rachel Nance
Language and Culture Coach
Educational Equity
Salt Lake City School District
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary, Maketa and Benjie,

I  just wanted to thank all three of you for the amazing experience you provided for all of us last Friday afternoon.  I appreciate so much your flexibility.  You clearly "met us where we were" in terms of our equity work. I hadn't expected to be taken a step beyond--and with the incorporation of music no less.  Thank you again for your time and energy.
I would love the lyrics to both the "Many Rivers" song as well as that amazing "Can We Talk" poem.  
 
My best to all of you.  Hope to cross paths again in the near future.

Jennifer Newell
Language and Culture Coach
Educational Equity Dept.
Salt Lake City School District

Thank you to everyone who came out to the Firehouse Center for Performing Arts in Fairhaven Friday night to support us and take part in the conversation. It was great to connect with old friends, make some new ones, and just have the opportunity to spend an evening with good people doing important work in our home region of NW Washington.



Our wonderful friend Connie Garling came all the way from St. Paul MN to see us. We just dropped the idea over dinner in Minneapolis a few weeks ago, and true to form – she showed up. We love you, Connie!

Thanks to Dad, Gary Howard, for being the MC for the evening. Also true to form – you brought us all to where it matters – the big picture and the central question: What is our job as educators? What does it mean to be educated? How are we accountable to one another, and the land that sustains us? As always, it is a true pleasure to work with our Dad.



We officially opened our new song, Shades of Brown, Friday night. For those of you who haven’t heard it yet – we look forward to sharing it with you. It really is a blast to play.



We brought in a really great videographer and a team of photographers for the event, so be on the look out for some new stuff from us. Thanks to Aaron from VirtuositySix Media Works and Aamir, and Atifa of Aiya Photography for lending your talents. Our network of great artist has just expanded.

(All photos by Aiya Photography)

New Wilderness Project was honored last week to be invited by Dr. Kristen French to help bring in the new school year at Western Washington University.

Dr. French is the director of CEED, the Center for Equity, Education, and Diversity within Woodring College for Education. We have been working with her since this last spring. We share a common vision for the bringing together the social justice and environmental conversations. She is a valued colleague, and more importantly, a wonderful friend.

It was an honor to bring our poetry and music to this community of educators dedicated to the next generation aspiring teachers.

We also got to re-connect with our old friends from the REACH Center, Karen Aurand, David Koyama, and Sue Tripp. I remember scooting around on office chairs at the first REACH office in Arlington when I was a kid. Reach is now housed at Western Washington University in partnership with Highline Community College, Dr. French and Patricia McDonald. The torch is being passed. It’s very exciting to think about what this next phase of REACH will look like. Good luck to all of you. You are all in our family.



Here is some feedback we received through our website following the luncheon:

"I went to your performance at WWU this week.  Your performance touched some of my strongest desires for my kids in their education.  We live in a community that suffers from too little openness, communication, belief in each person's passion.  You reminded me of where and how I want my kids to learn....and that can be generated from within.  Having your positive influence brings healing to many!  'Many thanks!"

- Julie South

Student leaders from Zimmerman and Rogers High Schools return to apply their skills, support their peers and share their experience of the New Wilderness Project diversity and leadership program.

NWP Student Leader Reflection - Elk River School District from Maketa Wilborn on Vimeo.

where would i be without NWP? nope, thats not supposed to rhyme, but it does haha. today they came to do phase one, this is something that i have done 2 times already, but i take more and more from it each time. i cant think of where i would be without NWP. as Kadie has said before me, i must thank the families of benji and maketa. your husbands and fathers are changing lives of so many, thank you so much for supporting them, without them, i would live such a different, ignorant life.
after today's workshop, i feel so inspired, so... empowered. i am so excited to experience phase two. it is such a blessing to be able to work with NWP. i am more hopeful than i have been in the past year, the environment established has made me feel like my life matters to more than the people immediately surrounding me. my story might help someone else relate to another person, might help someone not feel so alone.

from the very bottom of my heart, i thank you.

Alyssa
Rogers, MN

Maketa and I are back in Minnesota working with youth in the Elk River Area. We did an assembly performance this morning for mostly 10th graders from Rogers and Buffalo high schools. We had a MAJOR technical meltdown as we began as we started into the first song – fancy new hard drive DEAD. Maketa stepped up and engaged the audience while I plugged in the backup hard drive and we were back up and running in less than 5 minutes. Whew! Let’s hear it for back ups!!!

We feel like we had a great session with leadership students from both schools.. Thanks to everybody for bringing your passion, your creativity and making the time we had together real! Great to connect with old friends and make some new ones.


Kadie and Maddie putting their leadership skills to work leading the creation of the groups
Community Agreements

To the folks we’ve been working with for the last three to four years – thank you for stepping up and taking leadership roles. The circle is not broken. We are still on your team. You have inspired us to no end. We believe in you, and we’ll see you in January. The journey continues.

Special thanks to Joel from Buffalo High School who took most of these incredible pictures (and more - I'll be adding some to our workshop pages). Your creativity was so welcomed in the session! Check out more of his photos at www.joelmorehouse.com

It’s snowing – wassup?!

~ Benjie

Keepin' it real and supporting each other as we they explored and shared their personal stories.

We kicked off the fall and the 2009-2010 academic year with two sessions at Bates Technical College in Tacoma, WA. These were integrated workshops that combined performance elements and workshop activities. As always, we used performance to create the space and set the context for the session - creatively introducing the themes and concepts that we explored throughout the workshop.

We usually get to "preach to the choir" and engage with a group of folks who are already familiar with the equity journey and have a personal interest or commitment to social justice work OR at the very least they are there by choice and are open to learning. But, for our first session at Bates that was not the case. The group consisted of mostly men - I think there was one female student and four other women who were staff or visitors out of about 35 participants. These were the 'guys' who were there studying trades like electrical and auto body repair. Needless to say, they were a tough bunch. They were not there by choice and the resistance was obvious from the start.

O.K. Trust in the process.

The performance pieces were met with silence or sparse applause and our post performance dialogue was a practice in sitting in the silence. However we reached the tipping point as we moved through an activity that engaged the group with each other as they explored the diverse perspectives in the room - from former white supremacist to mexican immigrant to recovering addict. I will spare you the other details and jump to the conclusion of the session when three guys approached us to share their experience. One guy named Corey had directly challenged us at the beginning of the session and held that his walls defined who he was and that he wasn't about to let them down. All three of them candidly admitted their skepticism and resistance at the start. One guy named Dane admitted to checking out and not even hearing much of what was shared during the first part of the workshop. All that said, these guys felt it and they got the message. Dane shared that he was moved by the session and was waking away with new perspectives and a lot to think about. I felt his sincerity when he said that he wished he had been listening from the beginning.

We created the space and made the invitation to creatively engage and this group of tough guys met us there. We only heard directly from three of them at the end, but the positive change of the feeling in the room was acknowledged by everyone. The session was a success.

The second session was with a group that was basically the polar opposite of the first and they were ready and willing to take it there and move forward on their individual and collective journey's toward greater cultural competence and personal awareness.

Trust in the process. Creative engagement, humility and authenticity create the space for transformation to occur. For us and everyone that we worked with yesterday at Bates Technical College, the journey continues.

We have just set the date and location for our Fall Showcase Performance! This has become a bi-annual event where we can showcase the performance aspect of our work with a focused group of educators, administrators and friends. This year we are taking the showcase up to Bellingham to share our art and our message with folks from Whatcom and Skagit county schools. We will be performing a few of the new songs that we have been working on over the summer so if you've seen our performance before you are in for something new. We hope to see you there!

The Firehouse Performing Arts Center
1214 Harris Avenue - Fairhaven District
Bellingham, WA 98225
October 30th @ 7:00 pm

Tickets $7 at the door

I would like to thank you both for the wonderful work you did while you were here at Harmony.  The students and teachers thoroughly enjoyed the New Wilderness Project assemblies, and your message was well-received by all.  I met with the teachers who were in the workshop following the assemblies, and they shared their stories about how the group came together and how comfortable the students were with one another.  This would not have been possible without your talents, knowledge, and ability to connect with them.  I hope your work with them will be able to continue next year. 

Thanks again,
 
Gail L. Lucas
Assistant Principal
Harmony Intermediate School
Hamilton, Virginia

Hey guys, my name is Debbie. I got to Harmony Intermediate School and I'm in the 8th grade. During the second performance, I was sitting behind the front row: I said the saying, “Your shadow can't show your emotion, only you can.”

I just wanted to say, Thank you so much! Because I'm a author and an artist (drawing) and I'm currently working on a story that I'm hoping to get it published when I’m done. I had been experiencing writers block for about half a year or so, and then today after your performance, the entire time during Lunch (after I ate of course) I found myself working on my story. So again I would like to say, thanks soooo much for helping me destroy the lumpy block standing in my way.

Dear Benjie and Maketa,

Thank you for coming to present at our school. I learned things about myself from the I Am From poem. The presentations were very thought-provoking. It was nice to be in smaller groups, that way it felt a little more personal. I liked how you asked for our ides and didn’t just tell us what you thought. It was a worthwhile experience I can try to apply to my life.

Sincerely,

Peter
8th Grader at Evergreen School Seattle, WA

_________________________________________

Dear Benjie and Maketa,

Thank you very much for teaching us about diversity, dominance, life, etc. I have become more aware of dominance and justice happening around me. It was the first time I really though about these topics. I think creative resistance is a gread idea and I’ll try it whenever someone is being dominated. I also learned about ignorance, righteousness, and priveleges and recognizing them in different situations. All rivers lead to the sea was very powerful for me.

Sincerely,
Michael
8th Grader at Evergreen School Seattle, WA

Dear families,

I wanted to thank you for letting us have your husbands/fathers come help our school.

Since Maketa and Benjie have started talking to us about how to make our school better, I’ve noticed huge improvements. This program is making our school much warmer. Also, I’ve noticed that the building has gotten much better. I’m very proud of what our school has accomplished.

My parents are often not home and I get that feeling of emptiness. I know how hard it is to let someone go away for long periods of time. I wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. They are helping our school and students so much. Everyone really appeciated what they are doing for us. Thank you.

Kadie
10th Grader at Rogers High School Rogers, MN

We just returned from two days "back east" working in Loudoun County School District. Neither of us had ever been to the D.C. area so the physical landscape and the social communities were a wilderness for us. By nature, there was a lot to explore and learn. We were blessed by incredibly warm welcomes at both high schools that we went to - Loudoun Valley and Parkview. Both are in the same district, but couldn't be more demographically different from each other. Two things that both schools had in common was passionate and committed leadership from the principals on down and incredibly engaged and insightful youth!

Our first day was at Loudoun Valley High School where we had the pleasure of working with Phil and Andrew who were the stage crew for our two performances. I can honestly say that these seniors were two of the most talented stage techs that we've ever worked with! They knew their equipment inside and out and were great problem solvers. Benjie and I were stoked to be able to share in their obvious creative passion. I didn't plug in a single mic cord. I just tuned up my drums, plugged in the laptop, and they did the rest. The lights and sound for both shows were great. Working with them was an wonderful experience of using creativity to connect across differences - their sound and light sculpting to our rhythms, melodies and message. Age, race, style... none of our differences got in the way of us sharing our creativity, exploring our passions and focusing our efforts in service to the community. According to the students, teachers and administrators that we heard from, the four of us rocked it!



For the second half of the day we connected with 70 students leaders and explored the diversity of perspectives and experience in their community. The insight and honesty that these students shared was inspiring! A student named Robert connected with the NWP use of metaphor and dropped a room stopping metaphor of the forging of a sword as the forging of true democracy in America. That set it off! And from there the creativity and energy of the group went up and the community began to take shape. Needless to say it was a great session.





Day two was at Parkview High School where we had another solid day of connections and community building. It was sprit week at the school and we felt the energy of it in each performance. The workshop session was full of powerful youth voices and burgeoning youth leaders. The culminating creative collaboration of the session highlighted the 9 different languages that were spoken among the students in the room and made a real impact on everyone there.


We will be going back to Loudoun County again - hopefully in April. If not, we look foward to continuing the work with these teachers and students in the next school year. Thank you to everyone who made our visit memorable and successful.

Before we went to the airport, Benjie explored the nearby Great Falls National Park. It was cold (not as cold as Minnesota) and sunny and we marveled at the icy beauty of the Potomac River's most infamous falls.

Benjie and I are back in Minnesota continuing our work with students from 4 high schools in the Elk River School District. We are here for the second phase of our program. We've had two excellent sessions so far but unfortunately our trip has coincided with an arctic storm that has brought the coldest temperatures seen in over a decade. As we headed to this morning's session with Elk River and Ivan Sands high schools students the temperature reading in our car was -18 degrees! We quickly learned that you have to start the car more than 30 minutes ahead of your departure if you want it to be warm, so this morning we enjoyed an extra cup of coffee after breakfast and let the car warm up for almost an hour. Honestly, we were thankful that it started at all.



Our first session here was with an incredible group of students from Rogers High school. Unlike many of the random groups of student leaders that we work with, these kids are united as the Students for Change and have done powerful work for their school community beyond the New Wilderness Project program. This amazing group of students is supported the dedicated leadership of James, one of the district's cultural liaisons. Benjie and I have been working with some of these students for 4 years and it has been great to see their leadership and their voices grow stronger. The excitement, engagement, dedication and creativity of these students is awesome to witness. We are really looking forward to the CAP (Creative Action Project) that they create following our final visit in the spring.



We are also looking forward to warmer temperatures so that we an truly enjoy post-session walks in our favorite park along the Mississippi. Despite the frigid temps, we ventured out today to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. Chunks of ice floated by on the Mississippi and steam rose from its surface. We enjoyed the beautiful silence of the park (we had it all to ourselves) and looked ahead to our trip to Louden County Virginia in a few weeks.

I Am, I Will…

I am independent and listening to what is right.
I will open areas where stories can be told.
I. Am. Strong.
I am a talker who knows the value of listening and a listener who knows the value of speech.
I will stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.
I am determined to leave a positive mark on the world.
I will be my own self and support my own ideas.
I am energetic and outgoing.
I am a true American, full of free will, hope, determination and the ability to be unique.
I will be one who ferments sugar and grapes- changing light and dark into sweet wine.
I am willful- willing to do whatever it takes.
I will try to change eyes to see every perspective and change ears to hear other’s truth.
I am alive and spontaneous and unexpected.
I will inspire others to be the person that’s inside them.
I am understanding.
I will open minds and souls to free the truths inside.
I am willing to change.
I will humble myself into another’s level, and raise myself to the platforms others set themselves on. We are on one level in this place.
I am together in a singular struggle for justice.
I will not let those too ignorant to understand fade into the blanket of a world of judgmentalists.
I will lead the dark into the light, and show the light a way into the dark.
I am reliable and easy to understand.
I will hold onto my truth and speak it to others.
I am driven by One Love, who shows me how to love others.
I will cut the chains that bind us to ourselves.
I am myself and will not change.
I am a revolutionary.

Alyssa – Rogers H.S., Rogers, MN
January 12, 2009

Some feedback from the director of a Seattle independent school that we worked with this fall...

New Wilderness Project spent two days with our Middle School in October,
and we (teachers, students, parents, administrators) had a wonderful
experience working with Maketa and Benjie.

Here are the reasons I was so impressed with their program:

1. Maketa and Benjie are very organized and thorough. Maketa and I met
or talked on the phone in two hour long sessions, planning the
events/activities that they would lead, well in advance of the dates.
Everything that we agreed would happen, happened. We are planning to
debrief sometime soon.

2. The program was tailored to our school's particular mission,
structure and goals. Maketa and Benjie began by asking me to identify my
goals and objectives and then worked from there. In a few cases, they
were not sure about what I was hoping for, or had some concerns about my
goals; they were very flexible, and worked with me to make sure that
they could meet our goals in very specific ways, and accommodated my
requests.

3. Maketa and Benjie worked with students in groups of about 55 in 3
sessions, with some faculty support. They led those large group sessions
very skillfully, keeping the energy and momentum productive. Students
responded very positively to each leader. The activities planned were
age appropriate and very exciting to students. I should add that the
middle and high school programs of New Wilderness Project are quite
different from each other, but I have spoken with Maketa and Benjie
about the changes that they make when working with high school students,
and they seem equally thorough and appropriate here, as they do when
speaking about middle school students.

Students were led to talk with each other and to appreciate each other
in new ways as a result of these workshops. They even went home and
talked to their parents about the experience.



4. We asked Maketa and Benjie to lead one faculty workshop with middle
and lower school teachers (The Bush School is a k-12 school), and the
teachers responded very positively to the concepts and activities around
the topic of "Cultural Competence". I have never received as many notes
of thanks from teachers for a workshop that I have initiated as I did
for this one.

5. We asked them also to do an evening performance of their music and
video presentation for parents, and to explain to parents what they had
been doing with students in the two days they were with us. Again, this
presentation was geared specifically to the audience and my goals, and
was very positively received by parents.

In general, we want to ask NWP to come back to
our school next year, and those two days that they spent with us this
year were two of my happiest days so far in this school year.

Christine Churchill
Middle School Director
The Bush School
Seattle, WA

Maketa and I have just returned from Elk River MN. This is our 4th year working with students from Elk River area schools. Some of the kids working with us started in our program when they were freshman, now they’re seniors looking at colleges and thinking about voting and life beyond high school. Most of our returning students took leadership roles in the workshops. It was inspiring and touching to see their evolution as leaders and creative activists. I remember one of them, Carolina, who was a shy freshman and now she is an eloquent speaker, a powerful leader, inviting younger students into the NWP process, and striving to bring the conversation to a deeper level. Another, Carissa, dropped an on the fly/ improvised “I am From” poem that blew everyone’s mind. I’ve never described the process as well as she did.

Very cool to be back in Elk River this year. We are excited to be doing all three of our phases in five high schools including our new friends from Lake Center High. We’ll be back in January, and again in March – so stay tuned to follow along as these students evolve as leaders in this rapidly changing part of the country.

After months of design, copy writing, editing, revising and pushing the technical learning curve with a new website creation tool, the new website is about ready to launch. At the same time, the 2008|09 school year is about to begin and we are gearing up to work with more students and to perform and present at a number of educational conferences. Our schedule is filling up fast but we still have some availability in November.

This summer has been a productive and creative one that has allowed Benjie and I to begin developing new performance pieces, refine curriculum activities and update some of our promotional materials. This website being the first thing to be shared. While it is not completely done, it's almost there and it will provide a platform for us to share more our work - from the stage, to student session to the studio. So, keep checking back for more multimedia art that will take you on a journey into the New Wilderness.

We look forward to seeing your there!